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THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY 



From the French of 

/ 

RENE BAZIN 



TRANSLATED BY 

WILLIAM MARCHANT 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1897 

t' 






Copyright, 1897 

BY 
HENRY HOLT & CO. 



THE MBRSHCN COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



1 

h 

■si 



CONTENTS. 



I. The Northern Provinces — Provincial Life, . i 

II. Roman Houses, and the Roman Campagna, . 90 

III. Southern Italy, 182 

IV. A Corner of Sicily — ^Etna in Eruption, . . 226 



THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 



THE NORTHERN PROVINCES PROVINCIAL LIFE. 

After one of the rugged Alpine passes, how 
beautiful is the Lombard plain! Barbarians, in 
ancient days, felt its irresistible charm. Probably 
it was very much the same when they saw it that 
it is now — always cultivated, fertile, green, and a 
marvel of skilful irrigation! What a delicious 
freshness in the air from these little artificial 
streamlets that weave a blue network over the 
land! They cross the highways, they intersect the 
fields, they come near each other, they go far 
apart; finally, one by one, they fall into the wide 
canal, which carries elsewhere the fertilizing 
water, forever running, yet never wasted. From 
all this irrigation it results that the land gives 
four or five crops of hay; the ricefields are 
crowded with heavy ears; the clover is like a 
blossoming thicket ; the cornfields, like canebrakes. 
The whole land is of marvellous fertility; and still 
the population is poor. 

This is an amazing problem, and one which con- 



2 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

fronts us almost everywhere in Italy. In passing 
from city to city, making no stop, asking no 
questions, you cannot help observing the contrast 
between the soil which gives — or can give — every- 
thing in abundance, and the peasant, poverty- 
stricken and unhealthy, as in Lombardy, or driven 
to emigrate, as in Calabria. The villages along 
the route have not the clean and cheerful look of 
the French or Swiss. Seen from a distance, 
crowning a hill-top, their tiled roofs bright in the 
sunlight, the profile of them is attractive. Glid- 
ing rapidly by in the train you think: " What 
an interesting country! That quaint group of 
gables marching up the hill, those narrow 
streets seen like a flash, that castle commanding 
the valley, all this primitive nook, unexplored of 
the tourist — how entertaining to visit it ! " Many 
of these little towns I have visited — the most 
sequestered, the most mediaeval — and seen close 
at hand, the whole thing was so sad, so absolutely 
wretched, that the impression of the picturesque, 
for a moment dominant, faded completely, and 
vanished in the presence of pity for human misery. 
For this world of poverty is also a hard-working 
world. I know of nothing more erroneous than 
that popular prejudice which represents the Ital- 
ians as a nation of lazzaroni, picturesque in their 
rags, always basking in the sun, always stretching 
out a hand for charity when the stranger passes 
by. Look at those men digging trenches in the 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 3 

ricefields, or at those preparing the ground for 
the winter wheat, or at those — and the women, 
too — who are stringing up along the sides of the 
farm buildings the russet ears of corn, the sheaves 
of the gran turco, of which polenta is made. Are 
they idle over their work? Is there any air of 
opera peasants about them? I have been among 
Italian labourers in the great estates at the foot of 
the Apennines; I have seen them on the Roman 
Campagna, in the country around Naples, at 
Reggio in Calabria; in Sicily the French super- 
intendent of the Duke d'Aumale's vineyards 
assured me that they were more industrious, that 
they had more endurance and more patience than 
any French labourers he had ever known. Others 
have said to< me, speaking of Romagna, which I 
have not yet visited, that I shall see there " the 
greatest diggers of the ground " that there are in 
the world. Everywhere, and at all times, the 
same testimony comes to me in respect to this 
strong, unhappy race of men. 

Neither poet nor novelist has told the story of 
the great bands who leave their villages in the 
winter and spring, and go to labour on the Roman 
Campagna, living in camps under the charge of 
their caporale, — the dramas of such a life, — the 
talk that goes on at evening in the huts where 
nomad shepherds make their sheep's-milk cheeses. 
But for this lack the Italian peasant would 
have had his place in literature with the Russian 



4 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

mujik and the rugged labourer in the fields of 
France. The question grows more and more 
urgent, whence their extreme poverty? To 
answer it we must take the provinces separately ? 
and examine local conditions, the method of agri- 
culture, the divisions of the land, the climate, mat- 
ters of hygiene, and also those profound differ- 
ences of race and character which, for instance, 
make it possible that the peasant in the Emilia or 
in Tuscany can by his own labour maintain his 
family on the spot where he was born, while else- 
where the condition of others is so precarious. 
Many of these local causes I shall be able to indi- 
cate. The principal cause, however, over the en- 
tire peninsula, is the excessive taxation with which 
the land is burdened. 

" Don't you think it's hard? " a farmer in 
Northern Italy said to me. " What prosperity, 
what spirit of enterprise, what progress is possible 
in a country where the soil is taxed thirty-three 
per cent, of its net income? And I am not speak- 
ing of the buildings on which, owing to overvalua- 
tions, we sometimes pay as high as fifty or sixty 
per cent, of what we receive in rent. It was very 
well said by Count Iacini that the state, the 
provinces, the towns, do not tax but plunder the 
soil." 

Add to this, usury — still very prevalent, not- 
withstanding the creation of national banks — and 
the scantiness and poor quality of food, which, in 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 5 

the North, occasions the frightful skin disease, 
pellagra; and the deplorable condition of many of 
the cottages, which the proprietors have not the 
means or have not the humanity to repair; and 
without dwelling further upon causes, it is easy to 
understand why socialism found its earliest parti- 
sans in Italy among the rural population. The 
peasant had not become desirous of the overthrow 
of the old regime; he had not been reached by the 
republican propaganda of the Mazzinians; he had 
remained quite indifferent to his political rights: 
but, for the last twenty years, he has been more 
and more interested in that which socialism 
preaches, in the elementary form adapted to his 
mental condition: " You have nothing; they have 
everything: take their place." 

Lombardy, Venetia, Emilia, Romagna, all have 
rural groups strongly imbued with socialism. The 
evil spreads. Annual disturbances make this 
apparent at different points. And it is not the 
newspapers — rarely read by these ignorant popu- 
lations — which contribute most to- this propa- 
ganda, nor yet the public addresses of leaders, such 
as the deputies Costa and Maffei. The real and 
most dangerous agents of rural socialism are the 
primary teachers, 1 

1 See the address of Count Joseph Grabinski before the Agricultural 
Society of Bologna : lo Sciapero e la questione sociale nelle campagne. 
Generelli, Bologna, 1892. 



6 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

With all this enormous tax which they levy 
upon the product of the land, however, neither 
state, nor province, nor town, is rich. This is evi- 
dent to the most careless observer. An under 
secretary in the Ministry of Public Instruction 
recently declared, in an address to the voters of 
Gallarate, that 348 towns, belonging to 31 prov- 
inces, were irregular in the payment of their school- 
masters, and were at that moment actually in 
arrears toward over a thousand of these interest- 
ing creditors. This is an official statement. But 
daily life offers a multitude of other facts not less 
significant. 

When I was last in Italy, an employee of the 
Italian telegraph paid me a money order in gold. 
In my present visit I have been less fortunate. 
The only gold I have seen has been that which I 
paid to others. The piece of silver of five lire has 
disappeared ; the two lire and the one lira are not 
plenty; and often in the country, if you have to 
change a bill, you must accept copper. Ten francs 
in copper! I have been obliged to take them, 
however, after a vain attempt to do better. This 
was inconvenient; and if you ask the reason for 
such a scarcity of silver coin, you will receive this 
explanation: " Una piccola combinazione, signore ! 
Listen! Some of our people are taking the oppor- 
tunity to speculate. They collect the silver in 
pieces of five and two* and one and carry it over 
the frontier. Now, as soon as the lire cross the 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 7 

Alps, they are francs; that is to say, they have 
gained three or four per cent, in value. Then the 
speculator obtains his letter of exchange on France 
or Switzerland, and he has made quite a little 
profit, without any risk. Chiefly through transac- 
tions of this kind, our neighbour, Switzerland, has 
now eighty millions of francs of Italian silver, — 
having recently taken account of them, — and in 
France there are still more." Examples could be 
multiplied; but of what use? 

The Italians readily acknowledge their poverty. 
The comparison between rich France, and Italy 
which is not rich, is constantly before their eyes. 
It has something to do, no doubt, with that feel- 
ing of jealousy — jealousy, rather than enmity — 
which some of them entertain toward France. 
They are brought to a stand or they are seriously 
hampered in their undertakings, in their great 
public works, by the lack of funds. And this 
wound to their pride is made the keener by their 
perfectly justifiable consciousness of merit. 

One cannot be much in Italy, in fact, without 
being struck with the great amount of labour and 
of intelligence which is expended there; with the 
projects of every kind that are on foot; with the 
merit of the men one meets. Finally you come to 
think: "An armed Italy, an Italy which exhausts 
itself in armaments, is, as has been well said, far 
from being of no account; but an Italy frugal and 
careful would be a formidable power. Everything, 



8 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

in her case, is ready to go forward. Money is all 
she lacks. If she did but know! " 

Milan, All Souls' Day. 
The Cathedral displayed its finest deeorati'ons 
for the festa of yesterday, and they have not yet 
been removed. All the way down the nave and in 
the transept paintings draped in crimson are hung 
between the columns. They represent scenes in 
the life of S. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of 
Milan; but they are placed so high that one can- 
not judge of their merits as works of art. They 
shut off the light from the tall windows, and the 
great church, always dark, is made still darker. 
There is a crowd at the morning masses, as many 
men as women, and far more simple and familiar 
in their devotions than worshippers in French 
churches usually are. There are not those sym- 
metrical rows of chairs or benches, the ones in 
front reserved for the people who pay for them, 
the others, behind, left for the poor. Here each 
person takes his chair from a great mass, at the 
entrance to the transept, and places it where he 
likes. An employee of the church also assists in 
the distribution. He is in a livery-jacket, like a 
house servant, which appears to be a good idea; 
also he asks no compensation, which is surely 
another. The groups are interesting. I observe 
a lady in stylish dress, her husband in a light over- 
coat, surrounded by people of the humblest class, 



PROVINCIAL LIFE, 9 

yet perfectly contented with their surroundings; 
in front, two woolly shepherds, very serious, very 
dirty, very hard-featured; at the left, half a dozen 
young girls seated on their heels, their dragging 
shawls making a slight rustle all the time, as the 
wearers lean over to talk among themselves, in a 
very low tone, still giving their main attention to 
the service; behind, a row of peasant women, 
brilliant in red and yellow. All these people elbow 
one another more unconcernedly than in France; 
and the democratic spirit of Italy shows itself in 
this corner of the Duomo, as it does everywhere 
else. 

I go out. It is a gray morning. The tramway 
leading to the cimitero monumentale is besieged. 
From both ends of the street a multitude of people 
are on the way toward the same point, which is at 
some distance outside the gates. But the thou- 
sands of the living are still few in this field of the 
dead, the most extensive that I have seen in Italy; 
and when they scatter, passing under the black 
and white arches of the entrance, among the vari- 
ous avenues, straight, parallel, bordered with trees 
and shrubs, they almost disappear, and take noth- 
ing from the sadness of the place and the occa- 
sion. The Milanese are very proud of their ceme- 
tery, as are the Genoese and the people of Messina 
of theirs. It must have cost many millions to the 
city as well as to individuals. However, if there 
were a competition among these funereal pleasure 



10 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

grounds, — for such the Italian cemeteries are, — 
Milan would not, in my judgment, receive the 
prize. The situation of the Campo Santo at Mes- 
sina, on the slope of the Sicilian mountains, over- 
looking the strait and the sea, its magnificent 
trees, its flowery stairs, would give it a signal ad- 
vantage; while, on the other hand, in the number 
and magnificence of private chapels, the Genoese 
cemetery greatly surpassed this. The profusion, 
the prodigality of marble, at Genoa, is something 
incredible. Nowhere is the stone made so supple, 
required to represent so many family scenes, so 
many trained and ruffled gowns with marvellous 
imitation of silk, so much lace, so many young men 
in frock coat and tall hat, coming with their 
mothers to weep and pray at the father's death- 
bed or his tomb. Never before has marble been 
domesticated to this degree. But everywhere, at 
Milan, at Genoa, at Messina, there is the same 
realistic inspiration. 

I follow avenues devoted to tombs of people of 
the middle class. There are flowers, rosebushes, 
honeysuckles, cut back as with us; tall night-lights 
in coloured glass; and always the bust, in plaster, 
in weather-stone, in bronze, with spectacles, if the 
dead man wore them; or the photograph, framed 
and protected by glass. These Italian cemeteries 
are like a great album of departed generations. 
Everybody's ancestors are there, with their modes 
of dress, their wrinkles, their warts, their smiles. 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. II 

Many persons yet alive are also represented in 
attitudes of mourning. Some remarried widow, 
grown old and stout, may see herself there, in the 
beauty of her twenty years and the pathetic charm 
of her first grief. And there are curious inscrip- 
tions, such as I have already seen elsewhere, in 
which the grateful heir praises the dead relative for 
the abundant inheritance received from him: " To 
Pietro S., who by his business ability, his integrity, 
his industry, was able to increase the wealth of his 
family." I could quote twenty variations on this 
same theme. 

Elsewhere charming ideas, as on the tomb of 
a child, where it was a mother's hand, surely, that 
engraved the one line: "A rividerla, mama! " And 
extraordinary manifestations of human devotion, 
for instance, in letters of gold paper, pasted on 
black ribbon, suspended from the two arms of a 
cross. I had noticed, from a distance, these 
funereal festoons, wide and stiff, the ends lost in 
tufts of chrysanthemums. I approached. Two 
women, kneeling, gazed fixedly upon the freshly 
turned sand; and on the black streamer were these 
words: " To my murdered daughter!" This in- 
dication of cause, this alarum of vengeful passion, 
are they not suggestive? And does it not reveal, 
with this very matter-of-fact race, a soul differ- 
ently constituted from ours, less disposed to ideal- 
ize the image of those who are taken away, 
seeking the actual resemblance, the representation 



12 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

of the last scene of life, while what the rest of us 
desire to behold is only the spiritual form, trans- 
figured and made beautiful by death, as no one but 
the sculptor of genius can conceive and render it? 

Some monuments of extreme richness, in the 
principal avenue; one especially, in bronze, attracts 
universal admiration. It has been recently 
erected to the memory of a young woman of noble 
family. She lies there, on a broad, low bed, nude 
to the waist. Her head is very beautiful, lying a 
little turned on the pillow, the face bearing the 
imprint of a new peace unknown to life: and be- 
hind her, sketched upon the panel which rises like 
a wall, a procession of angels, with wide-spread 
wings, bear the soul toward the light. This work, 
by the sculptor Enrico Buti, is one of the very few 
which go beyond the limits of mere handicraft. 
The groups that gather around it are almost ex- 
clusively middle-class or artisans. The latter are 
all in their working clothes. The women, bare- 
headed as a rule, wear the large shawl that sweeps 
so gracefully through all Italian streets and high- 
ways; the men are in blouse or jacket. It is no- 
ticeable that the Italian workman does not have 
his " Sunday clothes." At least there is never an 
appreciable difference between the aspect of the 
Sunday crowd and that of Monday. 

The peasant women, on the contrary, never 
stop, or rarely, before this statue in bronze. 
They pass on gravely, in little bands, village 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 13 

neighbours, reciting the rosary aloud as they 
walk, and passing through their fingers the string 
of beads, which hangs over their bright-coloured 
aprons. They no longer wear the entire costume, 
as we see it in books and in photographs. Alas! 
one must go far before he meets those marvels of 
popular taste, those bold, harmonious effects of 
costume, that painting has made familiar to us all, 
which we expect to see as soon as we cross the 
Alps. 

Graziella has but few sisters. Only once have 
I noticed any great multitude of Italians attired 
like the pictures, and this was in the depths of 
Calabria, on one of the Madonna festas. 

But neither old buildings nor old costumes 
fall all at once. There lingers still in Italy a 
marked taste for bright-coloured stuffs, some one 
old article of wearing apparel, some accessory, 
some jewel. In the country about Milan it is the 
great rayed comb that the women wear at the 
back of the head upon their coiled hair. This is 
a set of long silver pins, flattened at the top, 
making a semicircle, of, you might say, two dozen 
little silver spoons, arranged fan-wise. 

Leaving the Campo Santo, I went to spend an 
hour with one of the sculptors, of whom many, 
such as Enrico Buti, Ernesto Bazzari, Barcaglia, 
Bassaghi (who died lately), have acquired a cer- 
tain reputation. He showed me a great number 
of works or models, most of them intended for 



14 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

tombs, and denoting great flexibility of hand, a 
supreme comprehension of plastic truth. Still, 
something was lacking, almost always. As I went 
through the rooms with this agreeable and clever 
man, certainly much nearer the artist than the 
artisan, I had all the time a vision of that immor- 
tal girl who stands by Henri Regnault's tomb. 
And later I asked myself whether the Italian 
genius — for the time enfeebled, but in the end 
destined to recover strength — has not been always 
more realistic than the French. Even in those 
epochs when men's minds were lifted to the most 
wonderful ideals, did the Italian artists ever get 
far away from the portrait; ennobled I grant, 
made divine by the smile or by the attributes, but 
a portrait nevertheless? Like the Romans, their 
very practical ancestors, were they not always dis- 
trustful of allegory and legend, those two styles 
of art where Imagination has no longer any guide 
but herself? Have they ever dwelt, between 
heaven and earth, in that enchanted land where 
the northern races, restless and fascinated, lived 
and moved all through the Middle Ages? Did 
Rafaelle -ever dream of that land? The great 
Buonarotti — he who knew what it was — would 
probably have answered, No! 

I have just seen the King and Queen for several 
hours, and very near. The sovereigns presided, 
in the presence of several hundred guests, at the 
inauguration of an Institute for the Blind, recently 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 1 5 

established in the via Vivaio. The buildings, 
entirely new, whose construction is due to the 
bequest of a Milanese, open upon a narrow street 
in a populous quarter. They are very large, and 
cheerful in colour — uselessly so, alas! for their in- 
mates^ — and of that handsome style which requires 
porticos, cornices, cloisters, broad staircases. The 
Italians too often sacrifice to this the comfort 
of their houses, but here they have not done so. 
The blind will be most pleasantly lodged. We 
enter through a gate into a court-yard, and then 
through a vestibule, adorned with columns, into 
a frescoed hall for receptions and entertainments. 
The workrooms for men and women surround it. 
The King arrives first, from Monza, in a very 
ordinary two^horse landau. He wears a frock-coat 
and silk hat. The presentations being made, every- 
one resumes his hat by the royal command; and 
the King begins to chat with the Milanese authori- 
ties and the managers of the new Institute, remain- 
ing in the vestibule, where the cold outdoor air 
circulates freely. I remark no excessive attention 
on the part of those who surround him. He talks 
to each, in very short sentences, speaking low, 
with a frequent lifting of the chin. His attitude 
is altogether military; and it is easy to see that 
he likes to talk standing, his chest well thrown 
out, taking a step or two now and then, a habit 
which he maintains in the court receptions, and 
one of which the very young diplomats do not 



16 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

complain. His moustache is formidable, less so 
than on the coins, however; but his glance, a little 
singular in its fixedness, has nothing severe. King 
Humbert's popularity increased much after the 
cholera at Naples, and he is aware of this fact. 

Ten minutes later there is a stir in the crowd 
massed outside; and a carriage with four horses 
and postilions draws up at the steps. The Queen 
descends, and enters on the King's arm, between 
the double row of guests. She wears a Medici 
collar of black velvet, a hat of black velvet with 
large plumes, and a dark-blue silk gown. The 
double row salutes; the Queen smiles, and her 
smile is famous, we know. Also, she has long 
golden eyelashes, which give a charm to her look. 
A lady of honour follows her. And the two* sover- 
eigns begin that official role which habit may 
render easy but cannot make amusing. 

They listen to the address of a venerable gen- 
tleman; then to music; then to a compliment 
from one of the blind; and then to music again. 
Then they must make the complete circuit of the 
new building, and submit to explanations of things 
in themselves already comprehensible. I follow 
with the crowd of guests, who knock against cor- 
ners of doors, block up corridors, and fill in ad- 
vance the halls through which royalty must pass. 
It is curious, this silent and eager crowd. Evi- 
dently it represents the high Milanese society. 
Everywhere around me a pleasant, well-bred mur- 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. *7 

mur of Italian words, with discreet smiles, and 
now and then a ceremonious presentation; very 
refined faces of girls and young women, and those 
liquid eyes so rapidly changing in their expression. 
But almost no toilet; gray, mauve, or blue wraps, 
and street bonnets. At Paris, for a negro prince, 
the women would have besieged Worth and Red- 
fern. Here they go in the simplest attire. Most 
of the men wear derby hats. However, too rapid 
conclusions must not be drawn; for in the even- 
ing all this is changed, as if by enchantment, and 
Milan is, perhaps, with Rome, the city of Italy 
where one sees, under the light of chandeliers, the 
greatest display of dress and jewels. 

Still another thing surprises: — the almost com- 
plete absence of uniforms, barriers, and police. 
The white plume of an aide-de-camp is moving 
about among the groups; a qitesturino, in his 
belted tunic, demands passage for the King and 
Queen; but the person of the sovereigns seems 
entirely unguarded. They are approached, they 
are surrounded, as in a drawing room, where all 
the guests are known, and have been presented. 

The Queen stops in one of the schoolrooms, 
desires a young girl to write the name Margherita 
di Savoia, desires another to read aloud from a 
book with raised letters, admires the sewing or the 
embroidery of a third. She is admirably apt at 
her difficult trade of queen. No one could better 
or more courteously ask questions, express her 



1 8 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

thanks, appear to take an interest in everything. 
And this smiling visit to the poor timid children 
touches the looker-on like an act of charity, and as 
a thing extremely well done, especially when the 
listener can follow this little distribution of ques- 
tions, which is like a distribution of prizes, asked 
in a musical voice and with the expressive and 
natural pantomime of these Italian fingers of hers, 
which speak as clearly as her lips do. 

Meanwhile, the King resignedly talks with many 
persons of importance, and again and again with 
the Abbe Vitali, a priest of kind heart and good 
head, it appears, who is director of this institute, 
and composer of the cantata just now rendered. 

II tuo spirito, o regina eccelsa e buona, 
E ovunque, e dolce il nome tuo risuona ; 
Ma dove piu gentil corre il tuo cuore 
E, dove sta il dolore. 

All the Italian world lives on this footing of 
intimate diplomacy. I have been told that at 
Genoa, during the centenary celebration, the 
royal launch was surrounded by boats of every 
description, crowded with the inquisitive of all 
ranks and races; and that, again and again, stran- 
gers, men of the people evidently, were near 
enough to touch the King on the shoulder or his 
arm, saying " Buona sera, maesta! " 

I left before the ceremony was ended. On the 
steps a court footman in scarlet livery was talking 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 19 

soberly with the first postilion, motionless upon 
his horse, proud of his red frogged jacket, his 
yellow breeches, his post-boots, his whip with its 
ornament of badger's hair; and the two now and 
then, without turning their heads, cast a protect- 
ing glance at the small-fry clinging to the railing. 

A hundred paces distant, the suburb had its 
every-day aspect. Ragged shirts hung drying 
from high windows, women were gossipping on 
door-sills, more numerous where the sun shone. 
Only there were questurini directing the fig-sellers 
into adjacent lanes, to keep the street free. 

I had not reached home when the Queen's car- 
riage passed, the four horses prancing and shaking 
their bells. All the fiacres stopped and drew up in 
line by the houses; almost all the shopkeepers, 
the men working on the road, the coachmen, 
raised their hats; but no one shouted; and, as I 
was surprised at this, a friend said to me: "We 
are monarchists here; but we are not courtiers." 

The Milanese have, moreover, a very high idea 
of this city, " the moral capital of Italy," a city of 
art and music, a publishing city like Turin, a com- 
mercial centre like Genoa, a rich and growing 
city, they say, but where capital is prudent, and 
will not venture forth at the present time. The 
truth is that Milan came very near being caught 
and having its crash like Rome. There was the 
same frenzy for building at about the same time. 
But the Milanese knew how to stop in time; and 



20 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DA Y. 

their new quarter has not the deplorable aspect 
of the Roman prati di castello. It is even very 
pleasant to see. If you wish to visit it, stand in 
front of the Cathedral, then go straight away from 
this point; the boulevard, via Dante, is cut 
through the ancient streets, and bordered with 
new dwelling-houses on the way to the Theatre 
dal Verme. Further on, large apartment houses 
are built, or are in process of construction. The 
Castle of the Visconti, partly demolished, gives up 
the approaches to the old parade-ground to the 
builders of the future; and the central pavilion, sur- 
rounded by trees and gardens, will remain alone, 
with its crenelated ramparts, in the midst of an 
immense region of modern habitations. This work 
is going on slowly and prudently, as I have said, 
but nothing is more curious than the part of the 
programme already completed — this via Dante, 
built at a time of bold speculation. How many 
millions has it cost? I cannot say. The munici- 
pality had offered a prize of ten thousand lire 
[two thousand dollars] to him who should build 
the finest house; and, less for the prize than 
for the honour of gaining this mural crown, 
the architects spared no pains in devising, 
and the owners no money in executing. Mutu- 
ally stimulating each other, their strife became 
epic; and as each one of these great houses 
must have the same number of stories, the 
rivalry was limited to a competition in facades. 



PROVINCIAL LIFE, 21 

Doors and windows of every kind, every variety of 
balcony; all the types of caryatides, rosettes, and 
brackets; all possible coatings, casings, mouldings, 
medallions, capitals, and chimney-pots, meet and 
neighbour each other in a very droll fashion. 
There are facades painted in Renaissance grisaille. 
There is one covered with painting — in oil-colours, 
I believe — incontestably modern; on a sofa, whence 
springs a palm tree with drooping leaves, a gen- 
tleman in a scarlet coat, his face turned toward 
the street, appears to be awaiting an answer from 
a young woman in white ball-dress, who is looking 
toward the Castle of the Visconti. 

One must not be too critical. Not all the de- 
tails are harmonious. They could not be so; 
but the general effect of these houses, forming 
one of the broadest streets of Milan, does not lack 
grandeur. The light tints of the washes and 
stuccos harmonize and blend well. When there 
is sunshine, all these new, fresh things seem to 
laugh among themselves. Add to this that the 
rents are not high. I made inquiry, and learned 
that a second floor, consisting of ten or twelve 
rooms, can be had for two or three thousand lire 
[four to six hundred dollars]. 

For all that, there is no great demand for apart- 
ments in this fine via Dante. Plenty of placards 
hang from the carved balconies: Si loca; AfHttasi 
piano nobile. They will disappear in time. But I 
think that a second competition, were it pro- 



22 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY, 

posed, would not be received with the same en- 
thusiasm. 

I forgot to say that the municipality, doubtless 
embarrassed with too* much to choose from, has 
not been able to come to a decision about the 
prize; which, at least, has been an economy to the 
administration. 

I am here in the height of an electoral cam- 
paign. The walls are covered with placards, in 
which committees " for peace/' others who are 
" for war " (but do not say so), groups of veterans 
from the wars of independence, labour unions, 
and agricultural unions recommend their candi- 
dates to the voter who passes by. The bill-sticker 
has respect for nothing, neither for private dwell- 
ings nor public edifices. He puts up his posters 
everywhere, on new columns, inside of passages, 
in the colonnades of mayors' offices, on carved or 
polished walls — it is all one to him. " They come 
off so easy with hot water and a brush," an Italian 
said to me. And, indeed, I have seen the brush 
obliged to> do> its work even in the handsome 
Galeria di Principe Umberto, at Naples. 

Public meetings are equally abundant, with 
more or less enthusiasm, but without serious dis- 
turbances. I do not think there is a country in 
the world where men talk politics more, or with 
more apparent ardour, but with more real indiffer- 
ence at heart. You enter a restaurant: near you 
are two gentlemen, one who is eating his break- 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 23 

fast, the other standing before the table, his cigar 
lighted, a long black cigar with a straw running 
through it. They talk politics; chiefly they dis- 
cuss a local candidacy. It is perfectly easy to fol- 
low the conversation, for they talk in loud voices, 
as if addressing the public. At first an aphorism or 
two of rather colourless character, backed up by a 
" carissimo" We may suppose they have seen each 
other at least twice before. The reply comes, a 
little more animated. The gentleman standing re- 
joins: " Permesso! La questione e questa " And 

then, with extraordinary vehemence, with vigor- 
ous and appropriate gestures, with changes of ex- 
pression in his face that an orator would not 
consider unworthy, he argues the case, he becomes 
excited over it. The retort can scarcely make 
itself heard. It is short, as is to be expected from 
a man eating his breakfast, but fiery. Both seem 
much excited. You wonder what will be the end, 
and whether the intoxication of talking and the 
presence of an audience may not carry one or the 
other too far. 

After fifteen minutes, the one who is standing 
holds out his hand. " Good-bye, my dear fellow; 
I must go; I have something to attend to." He 
is perfectly calm. His cigar has not gone out. He 
leaves the room with the utmost tranquillity. The 
other begins on his second course. No one in the 
hall has been in the least disturbed. 

Then you discover that these two men, who 



24 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY, 

seemed to be in such a state of excitement, were 
really not so at all; that they were talking only 
for effect. They tried (if I may be pardoned for 
saying it) to bamboozle each other. They were 
unsuccessful. But they remain friendly and quite 
ready to agree at another time, for there was no 
serious principle involved; there were only per- 
sonal preferences and momentary interests. 

This little scene, almost of daily occurrence, aids 
in understanding the excitement of talk, and the 
tranquillity of the streets. It explains the fluidity 
of Italian parties, impossible to class, unexpectedly 
increased or diminished at each other's expense, 
making one think of communicating vases that 
are separated only by a bit of gauze. 

I have read, of course, innumerable statements 
of opinion, reports of electoral meetings, har- 
angues, and letters to voters. It is well known 
that the Italians retain in their literary language 
the broad, sonorous periods of the ancients. Many 
are past masters of this art: De Amicis, for in- 
stance, in the novel, and many candidates for the 
Chambers, in their public addresses; so that one 
may read the former or listen to the latter, running 
on for more than five minutes without coming to a 
full stop. These men are ruled by the continuous 
Latin tradition, from which we have made our 
escape, and also by their temperament, all logic 
and moderation, which finds in this amplitude of 
development the means of presenting the idea with 



PROVINCIAL LIFE, 25 

the necessary ornaments, commentaries, objec- 
tions, and abatements. We bring our thoughts 
into a few words, exact, vibrating, sometimes over- 
stating the idea. They prefer to extend their wall, 
and get in a number of subordinate propositions, 
like so many gates of exit. This is all I have to say 
as to manner. 

As to matter, three things have especially at- 
tracted my notice. First, the Italians — and I refer 
to the mass of the community — seem to me much 
more apt at theory and generalization than the 
French. Read the political pamphlets which are 
so numerous in Italy. General considerations 
occupy the principal place in them. A French 
audience could not endure so much theory with- 
out illustration. Listen to public speakers, and 
you will be surprised at the philosophic note, less 
frequent, but more remarkable from a candidate 
addressing voters. 

Notice, for instance, one of the most celebrated 
Italians of the day, Ruggiero* Bonghi, orator, po- 
litical economist, deputy, editor of a review. He 
presents himself before the voters of Lucera. 
What a failure he would have made if he had ad- 
dressed a similar audience in France! " Character 
is something intellectual and civil," he says; "it 
consists, above all things, in having the mind and 
heart filled with the thought and love of the pub- 
lic welfare, without any self-interest whatever. 
Character consists in keeping one's judgment free, 



26 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

and never suffering one's self to be swayed either 
by passion or selfishness. Character requires that, 
up to a certain point, a man should be independent 

of himself. Character " And he goes on in 

this way for a dozen lines or more. And he was 
elected! 

Elsewhere, at Cesena, in Romagna, Dr. An- 
tonio Alfredo Comandini declares that " the 
decline of Italy must be attributed to the pre- 
dominance of material interests over ideas. Let 
these ideas, then, be translated into practical 
duties by abandoning the system of negations, a 
source of sterile conflicts and continual disappoint- 
ments." Did his audience understand this? Prob- 
ably they did, for this man also was elected. And 
he carried literary audacity in a political speech 
so far as to quote, a little farther on, the twenty- 
seventh canto of Dante's " Inferno "! 

A second point, very remarkable in the public 
addresses of the Italians, is the continual allusion 
to France. We meet this everywhere. And 
generally it is not hostile. Frequently, even, it as- 
sumes a tone of cordiality. " I wish," said a Milan- 
ese candidate, " that our relations with France 
might become friendly. I wish especially that 
men who* remember Magenta and Solferino would 
interest themselves in this." " It is not," said an- 
other, " at all becoming to us, who owe so much to 
France, and are bound to her by ties of national 
brotherhood, to talk about ideas of revenge held 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 27 

by the French/' I know that we meet language 
less friendly. I know that it is very possible, also, 
on the other hand, to attribute these advances to 
perfectly evident motives of self-interest. This is 
true; the Italians themselves say it. They suffer 
heavily from the breaking off of commercial trea- 
ties, and their great desire is to be once more in 
economic favour with France. But to make this a 
definition of the mental condition of the Italians 
toward the French would be at once too simple 
and unjust. Analyzing it, after the manner of the 
chemist, I fancy we should find something like the 
following results: 

Memory of wars from Francis I. to Napoleon {hostile), 10 

Natural race affinities, Latin tendencies (favourable), 15 

Gratitude toward France for services rendered {favourable), 5 
Memory of the expedition into Tunis and the attacks of the 

French press, sarcasms, epigrams {hostile), 25 

Desire to resume commercial relations {favourable), 30 

Prejudices on account of the Triple Alliance {hostile), 15 

100 

The proportions vary, doubtless, in different 
men; the balance is disturbed only slightly, as a 
rule, in one direction or the other; the elements 
themselves scarcely ever are wanting. They form 
a most extraordinary compound, giving the 
French political enemies, who are ardent ad- 
mirers of the French character and genius and 
very sincere advocates of the necessity of a com- 
mercial reconciliation with France, while at the 



28 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

same time they are advocates of the necessity of 
keeping up the German alliances. The mind is on 
one side, the heart often on the other; and con- 
versations on these subjects assume a singular air 
of paradox, to which I shall again refer. 

Lastly, candidates for the office of deputy are 
very careful not to neglect the grave Italian ques- 
tion, the financial one; and the manner in which 
they treat this merits a rapid examination. Their 
addresses generally are upon these topics: Italian 
parties, the economic conditions of the country, 
finance, social laws, alliances, the future. On this 
last point all agree — the future! Let but the 
speaker's advice be followed, and there will be lib- 
erty, prosperity, progress, national glory. But how 
different are the methods, how diverse the advice as 
to the road to be followed! Until very lately only 
a few public men have ventured to recommend the 
reduction of the military expenses, and to allow it 
to be understood, without expressly saying this, 
that it would be well to loosen, if not to break, 
the burdensome tie that unites the country to the 
two empires of central Europe. At the last elec- 
tions, however, this opinion, which had already 
gained some ground, found many supporters, of 
whom the most eloquent and the most authorita- 
tive seems to me to be Signor Giuseppe Colombo, 
deputy from Milan, and formerly Minister of 
Finance in the Rudini cabinet. 

Signor Colombo belongs to the party of Liberal 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 29 

Conservatives. I had the honour to meet him. 
About fifty years old, tall, slender, with regular 
features, deep-set eyes, under prominent eyebrows, 
a full, grayish, pointed beard, a serious, energetic 
face, an easy speaker. In seeing him and listening 
to him, I had the feeling that in France he would 
have been the leader of a party. In Italy I do not 
know how influential he is, but the speech he made 
before his constituents was an event in the penin- 
sula, and seemed to me that of a man very well 
informed, very brave, and very patriotic. I will 
quote only short sentences of permanent interest. 
" I believe/' he said, " that if we in Italy do not 
settle, absolutely and at once, the financial ques- 
tion, we are hastening towards a very sad future." 
Whence comes the danger? From two great 
causes, the excessive military expenses, and the 
heavy guarantees given to 1 the Italian railways. 
The deficit is now 75,000,000 [$15,000,000]. It 
will be 190,000,000 in the year 1900, if things go on 
as they are. Now, there is but one remedy. " The 
lack of capital leaves a great part of the soil un- 
productive. Italy, alma parens frugum, cannot 
even raise all the grain which she needs, which 
keeps her more than 1,000,000,000 bushels 
behind France." Is it possible, in conditions like 
these, to increase the taxes? Is it possible to 
think of laying heavier burdens upon the tax- 
payers, " when the land-tax, with its extras, ab- 
sorbs a third of the income, when the tax on 



30 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

houses reaches in some cases 80 per cent., and 
the tax on securities 20 per cent."? There 
must then be a reduction of expenses, This is 
inevitable. " Two, three, four ministries may fall; 
but the day will surely come when the govern- 
ment, in whatever hands it may be, will be com- 
pelled to this." Economies must be made under 
several heads, notably in the matter of public 
works, and in salaries. Let there be abolished 
certain " offices too numerous in the Italian ad- 
ministration, which is entirely based on distrust." 
Let the administrative machinery be simplified. 
" The local administration consists of 69 prefec- 
tures, 137 subprefectures, 58 commissariats, and 
69 superintendances; the judiciary has 4 high 
courts of appeal, 23 courts of first appeal, and 161 
lower courts; we have 21 universities and 11 insti- 
tutes of higher instruction. Only between Piacenza 
and Bologna, that is to say a distance of eighty- 
five miles, which is made in two hours and a 
quarter, and for a little more than 500,000 
inhabitants, there are 5 prefectures, 8 sub-pre- 
fectures, 5 superintendents' offices, 5 courts of 
appeal, 3 universities, 3 institutes of fine arts, a 
school of engineers, and a scientific academy. Do 
you suppose that nothing can be done to simplify 
this organization, which costs us 60,000,000 
[$12,000,000]? We are the slaves of habit, 
hostile to great reforms. We do not comprehend 
that it is our duty, after having melted together 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 3* 

all the little states that formed Italy before 1859, 
to make a new Italy, and establish the administra- 
tion on a rational basis, taking into account the 
natural divisions of the country and proscribing 
the interference of the state in local affairs, except 
so far as the general interests of the nation are 
involved in them.' 

But the grand economy must be sought in the 
war department. " The country does not feel," 
said the Milanese deputy, " that the present ex- 
tent of our armaments is a necessary condition of 
our alliances, for Austria is also a member of the 
Triple Alliance. She is perhaps even more ex- 
posed than we; but she is able to reconcile the 
demands of her foreign policy with her own re- 
sources, spending relatively less than we do, her 
population and wealth being taken into account. 
. . . Each does what he is able to do, and' no one 
should require us to equal the armaments of 
nations richer than we, and to plunge deeper into 
ruin, year by year, through a mistaken sentiment 
of self-respect. . . No, we cannot continue to fol- 
low Europe in this great madness, which takes 
away annually four million young men and five 
milliards of money from the wealth of the nations. 
Let us hope that Europe will grow wiser. But let 
us begin by showing ourselves wise — we, who have 
such need of men and of money to cultivate our 
lands and to avoid the disgrace, while we are thus 
arming ourselves to the teeth, of being obliged to 



32 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

ask — we, ari agricultural nation — to ask from Rus- 
sia, from Hungary, from America the grain that 
we are not able to produce! " 

The reply, for there is one, to the speech of 
Signor Colombo was Signor Giolitti's speech at 
Rome. Coming from a prime minister, it must, of 
course, be optimistic, and such it was, frankly, 
broadly. Signor Giolitti denied that the deficit was 
75,000,000. I have always admired the suppleness 
of official mathematics ! He defended the military 
expenses, defended the alliances of Italy, and drew 
an eloquent picture of the country's progress. 
" In Italy, since 1861, we have built 7000 miles of 
railway, 1500 miles of steam tramways, 18,600 
miles of road; the state has expended more than 
200,000,000 [$40,000,000] in special maritime 
works, and 65,000,000 [$13,000,000] in better- 
ments; we have strongly fortified the frontiers, for- 
merly unprotected; we have furnished arms to our 
troops; we have absolutely created a navy, to-day 
the third in the world; we have reconstructed our 
great cities from a hygienic point of view; we have 
erected buildings for schools and barracks for sol- 
diers, and have begun on prison reform. During 
the same time the population of the kingdom, over 
its present territory, has increased 5,000,000; the 
primary schools, which formerly had 1,000,000 
pupils, have now 2,500,000; the postal revenue was 
formerly 12,000,000, it is now 44,000,000; there 
were 355 telegraph offices, there are now 4500. 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 33 

International commerce — exports and imports — 
amounted to a value of 5,000,000 lire [$1,000,000], 
it has increased to 14,000,000; coasting vessels have 
increased from a tonnage of 8,000,000 to one of 
33,000,000; the amount of charcoal used in the 
kingdom has been augmented from 446,000 tons to 
4,350,000. The invested funds of charitable enter- 
prises have increased by 800,000,000 [$160,000,- 
000] ; societies for mutual assistance, then 440 in 
number, are now 5000; co-operative societies of 
production and consumption, hitherto unknown in 
Italy, now number 1300; deposits in savings banks, 
which, in 1872, were 465,000,000 [$93,000,000], 
are now 1,789,000,000 [$357,800,000]." 

Notwithstanding all this, as I still remained un- 
der the impression of certain of Signor Colombo's 
arguments, I broached the subject to my friend, 
the Marquis B., in the park of one of his villas, near 
Bologna. We were walking under the elms and 
plane trees which make a little island of verdure in 
the midst of the cultivated plain, with its intermi- 
nable rows of small mulberry trees. Again I see 
that golden haze of late autumn, fatal to vegeta- 
tion, which sheds over the land something of the 
deep silence of snowy days. It was so peaceful, 
and I was feeling so great a pleasure in again meet- 
ing this high-minded man, in asking him questions 
and listening to his replies, always rapid, clever, 
and thoughtful, that, almost by accident, and with- 
out change of tone, I spoke of what I had heard in 
Milan. 



34 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

But my friend took it very differently. Scarcely 
had I made allusion to these " counsels of 
reflection " and of everyday prudence, when a 
shiver seemed to run over him. His eyes blazed 
with keen excitement. "You believe this?" he 
said to me. " How r can you credit these dismal 
forebodings? The deficit! Is anybody going to 
believe that Italy is bankrupt because we have a 
deficit of 20,000,000 lire? But remember we 
have had one of 500,000,000; remember that ex- 
change was once twenty per cent.; that the 
Austrians held Venetia; and that we came out of 
that crisis with honour, as we shall out of this!" 

A little later, in Rome, I was breakfasting with 
a deputy belonging by birth to the Italian aris- 
tocracy, but by mental tendencies very near to the 
most advanced groups in the Chamber; a man 
wary and brilliant, who at one time held the 
dangerous diplomatic post of envoy to the King 
of Abyssinia, and accomplished that mission suc- 
cessfully. The same question came up, I know not 
how. He stretched his hand out carelessly, the 
shut fingers opening, one by one, as if to present 
the argument: 

" I know," he said, " and everybody in Italy 
knows, that we spend a little too much. Dio 
mio! the nations around us — are they not doing 
the same thing, more or less? " 

"That is true; but " 

" But we are not so rich as they are? Yes, I 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 35 

know that. Nevertheless, please to observe that 
our security, perhaps, and certainly our pride, re- 
quire us to go on imitating our neighbours. Tell 
me, would you go to a grand reception in a cut- 
away coat when everybody else was in evening 
dress?" 

" Perhaps so." 

"Certainly not! You would be ridiculed, you 
would not go." 

" Excuse me, I would go if I were sure of being 
there the next time with my silk facings! " 

He made no reply. And I saw by these two 
signs, and by many others, that the ideas of Signor 
Colombo were as yet very far from being accepted 
in high Italian society. 

Vicenza. 
It was very pretty, this evening, the little city 
where so many strangers — who are much in the 
wrong — fail to* stop. It had that ancient, roman- 
tic aspect which Italian cities so readily assume 
in the moonlight, when the shadows are deep under 
the porticos, passers-by infrequent, the gildings on 
the signboards effaced, and the new houses seem to 
blend into a hazy mass and leave more clear the 
beautiful lines of gray stone, the projecting fes- 
toons, the balconies of wrought iron, and the over- 
hanging roofs of the old palaces ; but nothing was 
comparable to the Piazza della Signoria, built 
almost entirely by Palladio, and the Palazzo della 



3^ THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Consiglia, so light with its two rows of arcades, 
the town hall with its red tower that might have 
been brought from Venice and its two columns 
with the winged lion of S. Mark. There was more 
daylight and also- more animation there than else- 
where; and to-day was election day. In the lofty 
halls of the Palazzo della Ragione the results of 
the vote were proclaimed, and the talking or the 
applause from the unseen crowd spread now and 
then into the almost deserted space where, in the 
soft light, we, Senator L., Antonio Fogazzaro the 
poet, and myself, were walking back and forth. 

Whoever has not experienced Italian hospitality 
will do well to make trial of it before finally decid- 
ing as to the character of our neighbours. It is 
particularly cordial and friendly, and one of the 
most attractive traits in the national character. 
The Italians pride themselves upon it. As a 
Florentine said to me, they know and feel them- 
selves the heirs of a very ancient race, habituated 
to receive the visits of strangers from every nation; 
and, besides, they take great pleasure in making 
known, admired, and loved that special corner of 
the country in which they themselves dwell. 

Oh! this affection for home, for a man's native 
city; this pride in its past, this devotion to the 
great men and the works of art of little places 
that are scarcely mentioned in the guidebooks, 
rarely named in history! How vital these senti- 
ments are; how constantly we meet them; how 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 37 

much influence they possess in human hearts! 
Consider Fogazzaro. He is an author famous in 
Italy, both in prose and verse. His works have 
been translated into German, English, Swedish, 
Dutch, and Russian. His Daniele Cortis, opulent, 
eloquent, full of observation, may be mentioned as 
one of the most remarkable works of modern 
Italian literature. The Mystery of a Poet was pub- 
lished in French not long ago. Now this man, 
who in the great cities would find more literary 
society, who would find admirers and many of the 
conditions of work and success, has no inclination 
to leave home; he lives, and he prefers to live, in 
Vicenza or its neighbourhood, among the Colli 
Berici, with their exquisite outlook over the fair 
country. To^ see him, tall and vigorous, in his 
brown cloak and broad-brimmed hat, a kind smile 
coming and going under his heavy grayish mous- 
tache, you would take him for a gentleman farmer. 
He has the tastes of one. It has been proposed to 
him to be a candidate for deputy, but he has never 
been willing to do so. Little municipal offices 
please him, however. He fills half a dozen of them 
with delight, presides over academies, administers 
the property of a charitable institution, abandons 
himself to the study of the theory of evolution 
even to the neglect of literature. When I express 
surprise, he quotes to> me the example of Renato 
Fucini, like himself an author of high merit, whose 
Tuscan poetry and letters on Naples I have read 



38 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

with much pleasure; Fucini, who began life as 
an engineer in Florence, and then returned to his 
native province, near Empoli, where he holds the 
office of primary inspector. " He is very happy 
there," says Fogazzara. " Giosue Carducci paid 
him a visit recently." The country, the welfare of 
one's fellow-citizens, the general respect of his 
townsmen, and sometimes a visit from a literary 
comrade of another province — this is the ideal of 
life for a noble class of men in Italy. 

At dinner the senator's family were gathered 
about him. His two sons and their wives, his 
daughter and her husband, all live under his roof. 
The eldest son is occupied with agriculture; the 
second is deputy to a justice of the peace; the 
latter's wife is a charming Venetian who, even 
after many years' absence, remembers with a shade 
of regret the wide horizons of her native city, the 
vast heavens reflected in the lagoons. All this 
group is most harmonious, simple, and sincere. 
The guest who comes in is at once received into 
a gratifying intimacy. He is welcomed as already 
a friend. What is his opinion of Italy and of our 
dear Vicenza? His first impression, by moon- 
light — was it favorable? Does he like roast 
chaffinches on toast, which are a Venetian dish? 
What beautiful things he shall see to-morrow, if 
the weather is fair! 

There is much talk about the elections, of which 
some of the results are already known. Now and 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 39 

then a servant enters with a note or a telegram 
announcing the success or the failure of a friend. 
Then follow general outcries of delight or regret. 
The senator takes his pencil, and on a page from 
his notebook writes his reply, a sentence well- 
turned, terse, graceful, which he reads aloud to the 
family before giving it to the servant — real master- 
pieces, these, of the lapidary style so dear to the 
Italians. They relish a well-phrased note, they 
read it over again; they read it aloud, the better to 
enjoy its musical cadence. " How well that is 
said! " they exclaim, and pass the little page from 
hand to hand, like a full bonbonniere. 

It is evident that the senator excels in this dainty 
art. He is a scholar, a man of amiable disposition, 
and of incredible industry. At the age of forty he 
was called to the Senate by the King; and in the 
twenty years that have passed since then, few of his 
colleagues have been more punctual or industrious 
than he. When he is at Rome he may be said to 
live in the Senate-house. Everybody knows him 
and has seen him, his frock-coat buttoned tight, his 
figure alert, his kindly face framed in his old- 
fashioned white whiskers, his placid smile as of a 
man who has had his life, his brilliant eyes full of 
intellect, and, in the street, always a silk hat — 
" The last in Vicenza! " he says. This evening 
he presides at his table, seated at one end, and 
joins in the conversation even while inditing his 
notes. 



40 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

" Signor Senatore, you are, I believe, an officer 
of the SS. Maurizio e Lazzaro? " 

" And grand officer of the Crown of Italy." 

" But you do not wear the insignia? " 

"No. My buttonhole is silent; and so is my 
visiting card. And you say so much about Italian 
vanity! We do not wear our decorations. Even 
at court, in ordinary receptions, the national 
orders are not seen." 

" The distinction is in not wearing them," adds 
Fogazzaro. 

We talk of the Senate. 

" I consider it an advantage for the country," 
says Signor L., " that neither senators nor deputies 
receive a salary. We have no other pecuniary 
advantage than a pass on the railways. With no 
more than that, there is less risk of public life 
becoming a trade. A man must already have a 
certain standing before he can seek to be elected 
deputy, or belong to one of the classes out of 
which the King appoints the senators. And, hav- 
ing obtained the position, a man does not alto- 
gether change his life; the lawyer remains a lawyer, 
the doctor retains his patients, the professor does 
not resign his chair." 

" Yes. The Senate is in Rome; but the senators 
are in the country." 

" That is not exactly the case. It is certain, 
however, that the number present is not what it 
would be under a different system. In the Senate 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 4* 

especially, there is usually only a varying minority, 
increased in stormy times, growing smaller when 
the skies are clear. This is not without disadvan- 
tages, but, on the other hand, what benefits! We 
do not undergo the prolonged strain of political 
life, of which you complain so much in France. 
Less tried by the parliamentary climate, we are 
much more in touch with the people of the coun- 
try. We know far better the true state of public 
opinion, the wishes of the provinces, and of our 
own fellow citizens, while with permanent Cham- 
bers, and deputies or senators obliged to live all 
the year in the capital, public opinion is but an 
argument which all men invoke, and upon which 
no person can depend." 

So the talk ran on, from one subject to another, 
in the drawing room on the ground floor, under 
the indulgent gaze of two family portraits, whose 
originals, no- doubt, had had, in their time, the 
same wise and liberal minds, the same amiable 
temper. Not a word had brought us toward the 
subject always in mind at the present time, in any 
conversation between Italians and Frenchmen, 
of our international relations. We had talked as 
if we had been ten years younger, or, perhaps, ten 
years older. But now, as I was about to withdraw, 
the senator took me aside, and with extreme de- 
liberation, smiling with manifest pleasure at the 
snare he was laying for me. 

" My dear sir," he said, " I beg you to meditate 



42 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

upon a point. Being concerned with politics, I am 
excusable for referring to them. I would say, 
then, that commercial relations with France are 
very useful for us — are, indeed, necessary. It is 
asserted that the Triple Alliance is the sole obsta- 
cle to a re-establishment of these relations. I ask 
you, is this true? Do you sincerely believe that the 
French Chamber, blindly protectionist as it is, 
would grant to us, even if we were not the allies of 
Germany and Austria, an advantage denied to 
nations entirely neutral? The Triple Alliance, 
then, has nothing to do with the affair. It should 
therefore be left entirely out of the account, as a 
foreign element, against which, besides, we can do 
nothing; and the question remains, would it not be 
wise in the interest of both nations to attempt an 
economic compromise, an arrangement, a recon- 
ciliation? Don't give me an answer now, — not 
this evening; you shall tell me what you think 
about it to-morrow, when we are on the road, 
among the Colli Berici, in the beautiful, tranquil 
sunlight, in the serene country! " 

We made the expedition to the Colli Berici, and 
I can understand now how, in old times, there 
came to be so many hermits in this country, — 
clergy and laity both, — often men of high family, 
who built themselves a stone hut, dug a well, 
planted an olive tree and a dozen vines, and spent 
their lives there! We begin by going up a long, 
winding road, which is bordered, just outside the 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 43 

city, by an arched portico. There are as many 
arches as there are beads in a rosary, and each one 
bears the name of some family of Vicenza who 
aided in the construction of the work. Passing 
the last arch, turning the corner of the church of 
the Madonna del Monte, to- which this via 
triumphalis leads, we enter the garden of a private 
house on the crest of a hill. The alleys of this gar- 
den wind along the edge of the plateau, among 
clumps of shrubs of varying density, and skilfully 
cut away to give outlooks. Around us other low 
hills are covered with vines and fruit trees, yel- 
lowed by the autumn. Above all is a villa. Two 
yew-trees frame it with their dark-green plumes 
above the black trunks. Approaching, the steep 
ascent comes in sight tapestried with vines; then, 
far below, across a little stream, beyond the long 
meadows with their lines of trees, the city is visi- 
ble, all pink in the morning mist; and beyond that, 
the far-off circle of the Alps, rising in terraces, 
heather-clad at their base and white where they 
touch the sky. - 

" Come, now," the senator said, " you shall see 
something quite different." 

This very different thing was the " Supper of S. 
Gregory the Great," by Veronese, in the aban- 
doned convent adjacent to the church. This pic- 
ture, which is very suggestive of the " Supper " in 
the Louvre by the same painter, occupies one wall 
of the ancient refectory, nude and white. It was 



44 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY, 

cut to pieces in 1848 by Austrian soldiers, who 
made thirty-two fragments of this admirable can- 
vas, afterward carefully restored. An inscription, 
which betrays the emotion, the affection, that the 
Italians feel for their art treasures, narrates the 
vandalism of the foreigner. A plan, which was 
shown me in an adjacent hall, reproduces the 
random lines of the cuts of the knife and sabre 
which mutilated the masterpiece. 

" Those were very sad days," my host said. 

" Which have left no very deep impression, it 
seems! You are allies now." 

"Yes. Why not? We said to them, 'Cross 
the Alps!' They did it." 

" Not as a favour! " 

" We have forgotten that, and so have they. 
Besides, acts of wanton destruction like this were 
not at all frequent during the Austrian occu- 
pation, nor were they even during the war." 

Half an hour later, we came to the Villa de' 
Nani, so called from the grotesque figures of 
dwarfs (nani) placed on its wall along the road. A 
true type of the Italian villa, the owner's residence 
separated from the guest-house, a long building 
where the imagination pictured some great lady's 
arrival, in a past century, with her retinue, her 
boxes, and her coaches. All the house is painted 
with frescos by Tiepolo; there is mythology, and 
there are Chinese figures, caricatures, tragic 
scenes, and all beautifully fresh in colour. And 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 45 

around, the country is enchanting. It appears 
through great glazed bays, a view less extensive 
than that from the villa previously seen, but softer 
in outline and attractively homelike. Over the 
shrubbery of the garden, where white statues 
gleam here and there, are seen hillsides cultivated 
as vineyards and orchards, a valley going to the 
left, winding with the grace of a river and losing 
itself between other hills. The air is extremely 
pure; the turf is freshened and the leaves are yel- 
lowed by autumn; no noise at all except a rare 
shot, followed by the springing flight of a thrush 
or a flock of starlings. 

While the Italians spend about the same length 
of time in the country that the French do — leav- 
ing town with the first hot weather, and not re- 
turning until December — their stay is actuated by 
motives somewhat different. Their villas, unlike 
the chateaux of France, are not adapted for numer- 
ous and gay assemblages. The hunting season is 
unknown in Italy. The S. Hubert is celebrated 
with, at most, a salmi of blackbirds, or a rabbit 
stew! But there is usually a guest or two, and 
more reading, more dreaming, more pedestrian 
expeditions, more idle hours spent on a terrace 
edge or in a drawing room whose windows are 
carefully planned for the view, enjoying the languid 
poetry of an autumn less rapid than that of 
France. Signor L. gave expression to> a similar 
thought when he took me to Fogazzaro's house, 



46 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY, 

very near the domain of de' Nani, on the same hill 
and commanding the same views, and said to me 
as we entered the poet's study, furnished in French 
style, full of bibelots, and looking with its three 
windows to the Colli Berici: " Did you think it 
was Fogazzaro who writes poetry? You see that 
it is not he, it is the country that sings! " 

My courteous host seemed to feel that he had 
not done enough in having made me his guest the 
night before and his companion in the morning's 
excursion. He made it a point to show me all 
Vicenza in detail. I will not dwell upon the 
museum, of which the guidebooks make mention; 
the library, where I found two priest librarians, 
with the aspect of monks, very learned and pas- 
sionate book-lovers; the Olympic Theatre, where, 
at the end of the sixteenth century, " CEdipus the 
King," was performed; nor even upon the odd, 
quaint streets; for I wish to speak at some length 
of an institution entirely modern, the Industrial 
School. It was founded in imitation of the French 
Ecoles d'Art et Metiers. Italy had but one, at 
Fcrmo in the Marches, when, sixteen years ago, 
Signor Alessandro Rossi, one of the richest manu- 
facturers in the north, whose woollen mills at 
Schio give employment to five thousand people, 
determined to furnish his province with an insti- 
tution which he had carefully studied in France, 
and considered of the highest importance for the 
development of manufactures in Italy. I remem- 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 47 

ber, during" a visit which I had the pleasure of 
making him in the mountains of Schio, with what 
enthusiasm he expressed himself on the subject of 
the school at Vicenza. He has carried out many 
plans for the relief of his work-people, but none 
has cost him more than this. I will not say in 
money alone, but in effort and in perseverance. It 
was not his idea to endow a state institution. 
Faithful to the decentralizing and liberal spirit 
which animates so many of his countrymen, he 
desired a local establishment having a certain 
autonomy, administering itself; he made a point 
of reserving to the founder, to the town, and to 
the province their very legitimate shares of influ- 
ence and authority, and also inscribing among the 
corps of instructors the name of a chaplain — a 
direttore spirituale; as they say in Italy. After 
much negotiation, this was accomplished. Signor 
Rossi gave about 400,000 lire [$80,000] ; the gov- 
ernment, the province, and the town pledged each 
a certain sum annually; and the four divide the 
control. 

It is expressly stated in the decree recognizing 
and organizing the school that the junta di vigi- 
lenza, or executive council shall be composed of 
the founder, Signor Rossi, one member selected by 
him, and three other persons, representing sever- 
ally the government, the province, and the town. 
It has extensive powers, this junta. Tt administers 
the school, votes the appropriations, deliberates on 



48 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

changes in the programme, appoints the profes- 
sors and the director (subject to the ministerial 
appropriation), fixes the salaries, and deals with 
matters of discipline. The director receives 8000 
lire [$1600] and his house; the professors, 4000 
lire. The courses of study, at once theoretic and 
practical, train foremen for machine shops and fac- 
tories, and engineers for railways and steamboats. 
After three years' study, the young men passing 
their examinations are licensed, and the school 
seeks places for them. Everything seems well 
ordered. The buildings, which I visited in com- 
pany with the director, Signor Boccardo, son of 
the well-known economist, are perfectly well-kept 
and abundantly ventilated. Much of the machin- 
ery used in the workrooms was constructed in the 
school. Boys from fourteen to seventeen were 
at work with lathes, files, drills, all sorts of carpen- 
ters' tools, and the discipline was like that in the 
Italian regiments — more tolerant, more paternal 
than is found on our side of the Alps. 

The industrial school at Vicenza is the most 
prosperous in the peninsula. The number of 
pupils increases constantly. It has risen from 78 
in 1889-90, 117 in 1890-91, and 149 in 1891-92, 
to 160 at the beginning of the year 1892-93. The 
only Italian institution to be compared with it is, 
as I have said, that at FernKx Elsewhere there 
are only special schools of much less importance — 
for instance, the school for plaster casts at Doccia, 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 49 

near Florence; the lace schools at Rapallo, near 
Genoa, and at Murano, near Venice, where, as is 
well known, this graceful work, once so flourish- 
ing, has been revived, and furnishes a livelihood to 
many hundred girls and women. 

En Route. — I have often noticed that the Italians 
take less pleasure than we do in speaking ill of 
their country. It may be because they think not 
quite so well of it as we do of ours. When you 
bring to their notice some serious fault, some 
manifest inferiority, they get over the matter or 
confess by silence only. " We have had so much 
to do to make ourselves recognized as a great 
nation," one of them said to me, " that you must 
not expect us now to depreciate ourselves in your 
eyes. ,, 

Two travellers have just entered the railway 
carriage. One has a furred coat ; to the other furs 
are unknown. He is thin, like a chaser after for- 
tune, and probably belongs to the southern prov- 
inces, of which he has the meagre, ardent type. 
No sooner is he seated than he begins complaining 
of the slowness of the train. "A bad line! We 
scarcely move! In France and England they do 
much better than this." Whereat the other Ital- 
ian, sitting opposite, takes a high tone with him: 
" What do you say? This train is going well. 
Our Italian lines are as good as any in Europe. I 
have been in France, too. Do you call the French 
trains fast? Paris-Lyon, perhaps; and perhaps 



SO THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

the northern express. But in general I defy you 
to prove that they are better than ours." Then, 
without transition: "There is perfect security in 
Rome, signor, and in the Roman Campagna. You 
can go and come by night or day, without danger. 
Since you are a traveller, can you say as much of 
Paris?" 

The man from the south began looking out of 
the window, and the man from the north appealed 
to me on the question of the train's speed. I only 
complained of the roughness of the road, and to 
this he agreed, and continued the conversation. 
He was a man of business, well informed on the 
present situation in Italy, and hopeful for the 
future. I formed the idea that he was a director 
of the Adriatic system of railways, and this rather 
spoiled for me his opinion on the subject; but I 
enjoyed the way in which he discussed Italian 
industry. 

" You have noticed," he said, " in our railway 
stations, the poster representing a big woman 
with a shoulder bek inscribed: Risorgimento in- 
dustriale Italiano? " 

I had seen it, I said. 

" It is an advertisement of a tartaric-acid fac- 
tory. When a business man orders a picture for 
his billheads or circulars, it is usually a deep- 
breasted woman in floating drapery, puffed out by 
the wind. Often she is blowing a trumpet. The 



PROVINCIAL LIFE, 5 1 

tartaric-acid goddess has no trumpet, you may have 
noticed, and that is just as well. In fact, I am not 
very much impressed with this idea of ' the indus- 
trial revival ' of a nation which has never been 
celebrated for its manufactures. We have a few 
industrial establishments, founded long ago and 
always prosperous, in the extreme north and west 
of the country. Our silk manufactures are well 
known. Household furniture has always been 
successfully made in Northern Italy. But the 
recent attempts to implant among us new indus- 
tries have not universally prospered. Far from it. 
And public opinion, even, has grown wiser on this 
point, and begins to understand that transforma- 
tions of this kind do not take place to order. I 
might mention, certainly, among enterprises which 
seem to be prosperously started, a carriage factory 
at Venice, another of household ironware at Sesto, 
near Milan, which is beginning to be a rival to the 
French importations. But is it reasonable to class 
with these, iron foundries and steel works, like 
Armstrong's at Pozzuoli? They employ a good 
number of men, it is true; but they do not consti- 
tute an industrial ' movement ' or an industrial 
' awakening.' To be frank, one must confess that 
the Italian workman is as yet untrained, and that 
his apprenticeship must be long. It is just as well 
to say at once that industrial progress among us is 
as yet very trifling, and that its development must 



5 2 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

be a very difficult matter, because we lack coal, its 
principal tool — its essential element, up to this 
time." 

Since then, half a dozen competent persons have 
confirmed the opinion expressed by my fellow- 
traveller. 

In talking with the Italians about their litera- 
ture, you generally hear the women say that they 
read French novels only; men often say the same, 
but they add: " It is not surprising that our litera- 
ture should be inferior to the French. With us, 
for the last forty years, all intelligent minds have 
been occupied with politics. The struggles for 
Italian unity, and then for the organization of the 
Italian kingdom, have drawn away from their true 
vocation not a few writers and poets. But now 
original works are beginning to be more numerous, 
and you will some day see Italian literature take 
an honourable place in Europe." 

I wish this may be so>; and, indeed, you cannot 
study the face, the gestures, the oratorical style 
of many a member of the Italian parliament with- 
out being convinced that here is a poet, an artist, 
gone astray from his true vocation. In gaining 
her unity Italy has lost many great writers. And, 
among contemporaries, to mention but a single 
name, I ask myself how anyone, seeing the poetic 
head of Signor Zanardelli, the president of the 
Chamber, can doubt that this was a man born to 
touch the lyre? 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 53 

However, it is true that, in the midst of a crowd 
of inferior books, and of feeble, often awkward imi- 
tations of foreign authors, the Italians have pro- 
duced, in the last few years, some works of real 
merit, and full of promise. We are familiar with 
the travels of De Amicis, but with very few of his 
novels or short stories — his Romanzo d'un maestro 
for instance, or those two books for children, Cuore 
and Fra scuola e casa, of which the first, especially, 
has obtained in Italy an enormous success. I 
have before me a copy of the 136th edition. De 
Amicis seems to me much more original and 
national under this new aspect. 

I will not speak of all the attempts at novels of 
society in its higher or lower grades, or of the 
demi-monde, none of which seem to have been 
very successful, with the exception of the Daniele 
Cortis of Fogazzaro. But the Novelle e paese vol- 
dostani of Giuseppe Giacosa; the tales of Tuscan 
life, In provincia, by Mario Pratesi; Le veglie di 
Neri by Renato Fucini, another Tuscan; U inno- 
cente of Gabriele d'Annunzio, an eminent stylist, 
born in the Abruzzi, who has tried many literary 
paths; and especially the novels of Salvatore di 
Giacomo, of Matilda Serao, and of Verga — to 
whom I shall refer later, in speaking of Southern 
Italy — appear to me works of real value, born of 
that love of the native province that I have men- 
tioned, and hence vital and full of truth and colour. 
Even to a foreigner it is evident that here the 



54 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Italian story-tellers have struck a vein of inex- 
haustible richness. If they know how to prize it, 
we shall have masterpieces; and they have every- 
thing to aid success — their tender and just 
appreciation of the sufferings of the poor, the inti- 
mate neighbourhood, almost the fusion of classes 
in a society less proud, at heart, and more Christian 
than our own, the variety in local customs, types 
and races, and the use of dialect — that marvellous 
element of colour and poetry. 

Moreover there will be nothing false about it. 
The tradition to which Italian prose seems, fortu- 
nately, willing to return, the dialect poets had 
never abandoned. On their part they have been 
true to their vocation. They have remained the 
most Italian of authors, unknown outside the prov- 
ince whose language they spoke, familiar, some- 
times coarse; but without models from outside, the 
expression of a humble public who give them the 
joy of an actual adoration in compensation for the 
fame to which they could not aspire. If you ask 
for them, their names are everywhere. In Pied- 
mont, Arnulfo, who died some time ago; in the 
Milanese dialect, Ferdinando Fontana; in the dia- 
lect of Pisa — the country of pure Italian as well — 
Neri Tanfucio (Renato Fucini); in the Roman 
patois, the famous Belli, who wrote violent satires 
upon Gregory XVI. and Pius IX., and ended by 
translating the hymns of the Roman breviary; in 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 55 

the patois of Naples, an incredible number of poets 
and song writers. 

Almost all have a marked preference for the 
sonnet. Under this brief form, made for the ex- 
pression of a single thought, there is scarcely a 
subject that they have not essayed. But the hero 
is always the same. It is the man of the people, 
talking, laughing and ridiculing, or weeping; and 
expressing himself in words admirable for their 
originality, wit, and intensity. It is the man of the 
people who is poet and critic both; and he is the 
hero, passing with his habitual suffering or his 
brief joy across the familiar stage of street or field. 
Let him speak! His speech is vigorous and racy. 
It is an ore where very precious metal is mingled 
with the dross. He touches the heart of his poor 
audience, and while the writers in the literary lan- 
guage copy all styles without finding their own, he 
unconsciously has kept alive for coming time the 
little branch of wild holly which will receive the 
graft and bear unknown flowers. 

At the present time many are returning to this 
study of popular Italian life. Some come to it 
with too persistent a memory of their realistic read- 
ing or of their classical education. But love is 
there — love which creates works of real character. 
These writers love that of which they speak; they 
begin to understand that all the artifice of the 
imagination is not worth one deep word from the 



56 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

soul; and at times, in reading certain novels, — 
thoughtful, sober, simple, — one has the feeling, 
which never deceives, that here is something which 
all the world could see, but only an Italian can 
write. 

And also, outside of the dialects, poets are be- 
coming more numerous. The Italian language 
is so easy for verse! It has so many rhymes in 
a and o! It is such a singing language! I 
doubt if there are many young men who have 
the " classic license " — licenza liceale, who have 
not turned a sonnet, a serenade, or an elegy. 
Many of these persevere — which proves their 
vocation — till past thirty, or even till old age. I 
have known men mature and settled, who live in 
the shade of their own lemon trees and write love 
verses, fiery or tender, which they print themselves 
on their own little printing-presses, without any 
desire for fame, giving the book a black cover 
when the collection is a sad one, and binding in 
white parchment the inspiration of happier days. 
Others try to find a place in the Reviews, which 
are always cautious towards lines in rhyme. I 
would say that Northern Italy, and particularly 
Venetia, is fruitful in poets, were it not that Naples 
might protest. " There are sixty-two in Verona 
alone," said my friend F., laughing. " The 
memory of the immortal lovers pursues them. 
Trent has Giovanni Prati; Trieste, Gazzoletti and 
Francesco dair Ongaro — do you observe this 



PROVINCIAL LIFE, 57 

claim of Trent and Trieste? Of course you know 
Luigi Carrera of Venice, and the famous Giacomo 
Zanella, the priest of Vicenza, whose verses have a 
reputation in all the provinces? " 

Yes, I know Zanella, and several of his rivals, 
and I confess I do not care very much about them. 
But I have read Ada Negri, a very young and very 
modern writer of verses, and I am enchanted. 

She is perhaps twenty-two years old, was born 
at Lodi, poor and brought up by a widowed and 
destitute mother. At eighteen she was sent as 
mistress of a primary school to Motta Visconti, a 
village on the flat bank of the Ticino, alone, 
without encouragement, without probable future, 
having read but little for want of books, but 
convinced of her own genius, proud, angry with 
life, and resolved not to be conquered by it. 
Two years later, Ada Negri published her first 
book of verses — Fatalita. She had derived in- 
spiration from her immediate surroundings, 
her poverty, her neglected, despised, thwarted 
childhood. The cry of revolt that she uttered 
was heard, as every true cry of passion is. She 
had at once partisans, friends, notices, requests 
for work. In a short time the first edition of 
Fatalita was exhausted. And the success, I assure 
you, was deserved. Ada Negri is a poet. Her 
language is marvellous in its strength. She has a 
manner of speaking at once audacious yet chaste. 
She is not at all ignorant, and yet she remains a 



5 8 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

young girl. We may suppose that this rebel will 
be consoled. But she will always be a poet, and, I 
think, have a place quite her own in the contempo- 
rary literature of her country. Read her sad 
Autopsia, her Biricchino de Strada (The Street Boy), 
Popolana, Buon di Miseria, Nenia materna, and you 
will be touched by the verses, so ardent, emotional, 
eager for life, eager for love. 

After the great success which she obtained in 
Italy, Signorina Negri was appointed to one of the 
normal schools in Milan. It is understood that 
she is preparing a poem. Alas! when one is so 
young, and truly a poet! Can it be? 

A great publisher — they are almost all of the 
North — said to me: "The cities where people 
read most are Turin, Milan, and Trieste. Very 
literary is Trieste r irredenta! Germany also is a 
good customer. When a book has merit I sell five 
hundred copies in Germany, to fifty in France." 

In the booksellers' shop windows and in the 
catalogues, I very often notice translations of Zola, 
whose Italian origin the Italians are fond of men- 
tioning. Public favour is shared by the different 
works of this author very differently on the two 
sides of the Alps. In Italy, while L'Assommoir, 
Pot-Boiiille, La Terre, have had only two, three, five 
editions, Une Page d' Amour attains its fourteenth. 
Is this really a matter of taste? I think not. 
I am inclined rather to believe that the title 
of the latter gave it its success with people where 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 59 

love — the word and the thing — occupies so great a 
place, and who, to express the idea of beauty, have 
six words to the French one. After Une Page 
d 9 Amour, the Italians have been great readers of La 
Debacle. This was an attraction of another kind. 
They scarcely seem to me, with a very few excep- 
tions, to appreciate differences of style, even the 
greatest. I have heard many men and many 
women in society speak most warmly of M. Guy 
de Maupassant, and, almost in the same terms, of 
M. Fortune de Boisgobey. 

Another sign. In Paris we have certain news- 
papers which publish " personals "; but how faint 
of colour compared with those which I meet here, 
on the fourth page of many of the n ost important 
journals! I select at random. 

The passion reveals itself and grows: 

" Beautiful Florentine, I thought I understood 
the signal of your fan. If it is so, be at the win- 
dow, same hour." 

" Thanks! I hope to receive good news. 
Courage, my angel, my treasure, my repose! " 

" Mamma's health still prevents my return. 
Yet, when I gaze into the blue depths of the sky, 
to every star that crosses the mountains, to every 
breath of wind, I confide the salutation of my 
heart for you, O most sympathetic (simpaticona)\ " 

" Happy, and sure of your love! I wish I could 
live a thousand years to love you for a thousand 
years, ideal of my heart, sole and absolute queen, 



60 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

my whole thought, my whole soul! A thousand 
kisses — small, medium-sized, and great (bacini, 
baci, e bacioni). I adore thee! " 

Unfortunately a suspicion creeps in: 

"Adored star! You amuse yourself much? 
But I live for you only. At least, write. This 
long delay makes me fear bad news. Heavens, 
what fear! I have doubts about an officer. . . 
I have frightful premonitions." 

Then comes the ultimatum, sometimes brutally 
put: 

"Very little politeness in your way of acting! 
If you are decided not to write to me, say so, and 
you shall have no more letters from me. Remem- 
ber that I have never entreated the weak sex." 

At last, the dismissal: 

" God forgive thee thy desertion of me! Yes- 
terday from my balcony I said this to thee. Adieu! 
Thou hast deceived me cruelly." 

Who knows but it was this same disabused lover 
who advertised in the Tribuna of October 21: 
" Deceived in love, I desire to marry a young girl, 
a widow, or even a person of advanced years, with 
a small dowry." 

Padua. 

I have always liked Padua and Bologna on 

account of their arcades. In Padua I also like 

the Chapel of S. Antonio, in the Basilica, with the 

tall reliefs in white marble, the most eloquent that 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 61 

I have ever seen. I was on my way to visit them 
again, — Sansovino's " Suicide," his " Resurrection 
of a Child Restored to its Mother/' — when my at- 
tention was distracted by a placard affixed to one 
of the pillars of the gallery. This was an appeal 
from some committee for the purpose of erecting a 
statue to' the memory of some hero, whose name 
escapes me. It began by reminding the reader 
that this hero had acquired immortal fame among 
men by sharing in the expeditions of Garibaldi; 
and later on depicted him enjoying in heaven the 
felicity of the saints. Evidently, in the mind of 
the writers, his service as Garibaldian was not the 
smallest among the merits which had entitled him 
to eternal bliss. " Garibaldian," said they, with 
unction, as in France we might say, " Member of 
the Society of S. Vincent de Paul." We should 
not have placed these ideas in juxtaposition. The 
Italian soul is full of contradictions to us inex- 
plicable. Something will always prevent us from 
understanding it completely: our strict logic, our 
inaptitude for la cornbinazione. I think it was at 
Bologna that I saw the statue of Garibaldi's chap- 
lain! Open any secular journal, the least religious 
possible, and you will see in the almanac of the 
day: "Ave Maria, morning, 5I1. 15m.; Ave Maria, 
evening, 5I1. 22m." 

The students of the university have not yet re- 
turned. In the beautiful inner cloisters, where 
are carved, painted, and gilded the escutcheons of 



62 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

noble students of other days, I now meet only 
workmen repairing the pavement, an apparitor, 
who kindly shows me Galileo's pulpit — a kind of 
tour d'approche in white wood that I had seen be- 
fore — and the rector of this year, Signor Carlo 
Ferraris. Perhaps it is not generally known that 
the rectors of the Italian universities are selected 
by the corps of professors from their own number, 
and serve for one year only. This is a democratic 
idea, and not without advantages. Signor Fer- 
raris invites me into his study. I find him cour- 
teous and well-bred. He belongs to the faculty of 
law, occupying the chair of statistics. This is the 
second year he has served as rector, having been 
re-elected, as have been many of his predecessors. 
He regrets that our French faculties have not all 
an annual register like the one which he gives me, 
wherein are most circumstantial details: the 
list of professors and directors, the lists of works 
published by them during the year, the horarium 
of each faculty or school, the results of examina- 
tions, the name and country of each student. " I 
send our register to a great many of the higher 
schools/' he tells me, " and I receive very few in 
return, particularly from France. " This thick 
pamphlet gives a good idea of the prosperity 
of the University of Padua. The number of stu- 
dents, which in 1884 was 1000, in 1891 was 
131 5. I see that the enumeration of works by 
the professors, on law, medicine, literature, nat- 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 63 

ural sciences, mathematics, and pharmacy occu- 
pies no less than thirty pages of the register. I 
observe, also, as I remarked at Bologna two years 
ago, the very large number of free courses, given 
by lectures. Unfortunately, I could not at- 
tend one. " As a rule, the university opens its 
gates the 20th of October," Signor Ferraris 
said to< me. " The examinations occupy a fort- 
night, and lessons begin early in November. This 
year, on account of the elections — many of our 
students are voters — the return to all the univer- 
sities is delayed. The opening address will be on 
the 26th of November, and the classes will not 
begin until December 2." A month lost on ac- 
count of the elections! 

This university has evidently nothing to fear 
from the project often agitated, and lately brought 
up in Parliament, concerning which men are talk- 
ing all over Italy. There is a grudge felt against 
the little universities, or rather the isolated facul- 
ties, which ancient and honoured traditions keep 
alive rather than any real service they render now. 
It is really a question of expense. The president 
of the commission, Signor Luca Beltrami, deputy 
from Milan, in an address before his constituents, 
called attention to the fact that certain universities 
have but a hundred students or but fifty; that 
faculties could be named which have only eight 
students, divided into four sections; and that there 
is one case of seven students for six courses. 



64 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Even, it appears, there is a school of engineers 
which has exactly five students! What is to be- 
come of you, poor Siena, whom the students call 
Siena gentile f And of you, Urbino; of you, Ma- 
cerata; of you, Camerino; of you, Ferrara? Little 
cities, the period of the dukes is past! The 
shadow has lost its poetry. Men no longer climb, 
on mule-back, up the steep bridle-paths which lead 
to your winding streets. All your wealth of art no 
longer retains men's hearts. There is yet a little 
curiosity about the past; but the deep affection 
which attached the fathers to the walls of the old 
cities, to the familiar streets, to* the family man- 
sions, grows less and less with the sons to-day. 
Our souls are scattered abroad through the whole 
world. They will never return to the nest. They 
will let it perish, with a sigh, but without making 
any strong defence of it, because they have left it, 
and the sweetness of home is never completely re- 
covered after one adieu. What is to be done with 
these cloisters where youth once laughed or 
dreamed — youth now buried, forgotten — whose 
dreams or whose laughter will never again come 
back to life? Will soldiers be lodged where once 
your masters taught the science of their day? 
There are not convents enough to furnish barracks 
now. Perhaps it will be decay, pure and simple. 
And that is best. There is a respect in leaving 
sacred things to die. 

However, a friend said this to me: " Autocratic 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 65 

governments have great faults, but they have it in 
their power to reform. Parliamentary govern- 
ments depend upon deputies, who depend upon 
their constituents, who themselves are led by their 
local passions and interests. You will see that we 
shall abolish neither the universities, nor the sub- 
prefectures, nor the superfluous schools for 
engineers." 

He was perhaps right for a time. 

I admire the feeling, the singular touching pity 
in these four lines engraved in the wall of a palace 
in Padua: 

Fazioni e vendette 
qui trassero Dante, 1306, 
dai Carrara da Giotto 
Ebbe men duro esilio. 

I have been at a grand dinner this evening. 
Among the guests two officers, veterans, who 
made a campaign with the French. They spoke 
of France with a sort of civil regret, in which there 
was more poetic memory than affection, more 
reminiscence of youth than heartfelt cordiality for 
the comrade of other days, the conversation of a 
man divorced from his first wife but far from con- 
tent in his second marriage. My reticence on 
the subject was acceptable. As a general rule, 
while the Italians themselves only in rare instances 
speak ill of their country, they do not allow you 
to do it at all. If they make allusion to the serv- 
ices rendered by France, you displease them by 



66 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

dwelling upon the matter. But if they rush, as 
they sometimes will, into excessive praise of their 
own country, they take you for a fool if you believe 
them. When a military man says to you, " France 
did us great service at Solferino! " if you reply, 
"How brave you proved yourselves in Africa !" 
each will be right, and you will be excellent friends 
at once. 

Bologna. 
My friend the senator gave me a letter to 
Lieutenant-General Dezza. I take a carriage, 
and am driven to the headquarters of the Sixth 
Army Corps, accompanied by two friends, one 
a citizen of Bologna, the other French, an in- 
fantry captain. After a delay of five minutes, we 
are received in the general's office, where he is 
standing, very tall, very broad-shouldered, with 
white moustache and chin tuft, in undress uniform 
— black jacket with turned-down collar, marked 
with the letter U (Umberto), without decorations, 
gray trousers with double red stripe, and riding 
boots. My friend, the Bolognese, presents us, and 
makes known my desire to visit the barracks. The 
general's face at once relaxes; he speaks to us in 
French. " Gentlemen," he says, " at least you 
cannot say we have prepared for your visit. I will 
give you a line to the colonel. Infantry barracks, 
is it not? " " Yes, general." And we set off for 
the ex-monastery of the Servi di Maria, where now 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 67 

are quartered the Twenty-seventh of the line, near 
that fret-work cloister, you remember, whose col- 
ums throw so fine a shadow upon the street. 

The regiment has just come in from drill. Many 
officers in the corridor, which is painted in oil- 
colour, black below, yellow above; this is much 
better/' whispers my French companion, " than 
our whitewash and lampblack." The lieutenant- 
in-waiting, a blue scarf crosswise on his breast, 
takes us into the colonel's office, on the left, near 
the entrance. It is almost luxurious, this office, 
with beautiful hangings, curtains at the windows, 
even some works of art. And the colonel, Cava- 
liere Pittaluga, is the most affable of men. He is 
of the true soldierly type, slender and alert, with 
blue eyes. " Gentlemen," he says, " I was received 
in Corsica most courteously. I, too, have visited 
barracks; and I shall try to repay to you what was 
done for me. I will be your guide. Come! " We 
enter the officers' reading room, where there are 
only military journals — the library is at headquar- 
ters, and then the dining room, where the table 
is laid for eight persons. " This is not the custom 
in all regiments," the colonel says. " It is always 
my wish to have my officers mess in the barracks 
with me, when it is agreeable to them; and their 
expenses are very moderate. Bring some ver- 
mouth, please," he adds, addressing the lieutenant- 
in-waiting. The Turin vermouth being brought in, 
the colonel lifts his glass; and, since he is Italian, 



68 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

that is to say, clever in finely shading things, " To 
the brotherhood of arms! " he says, and a friendly 
smile tempers and softens the forced reserve of his 
words. We enter the fencing hall, which is not 
large, but has been decorated by soldiers who have 
talent and the inventive faculty. They have de- 
picted on the walls all sorts of original military 
motifs, well designed, like the artist-artisans that 
they are. The colonel tells us that he never has 
occasion to resort to civilian labour for any of the 
interior fittings of the barracks. 

The kitchens seem to be well managed. In the 
non-commissioned officers' refectory, adjacent to 
their sitting room, four tables, of which one is for 
the staff. The ordinary is not the same as in 
France. In the morning, soup, a dish of meat, and 
cheese; at night, soup, two courses of meat, and 
dessert; besides this, wine at each meal, and they 
pay a lira and five centesimi [twenty-one cents] 
a day. The soldiers, who have 250 grammes 
[about a half pound] of meat in the morning, at 
night have only macaroni, with soup, and seem in 
good condition. But how different their faces 
from those of the French soldiers! I looked at 
them in the courts and the apartments through 
which we passed. While their officers were talk- 
ing, they, correct, irreproachable in appearance, 
had not even the air of perceiving visitors, unac- 
customed to it as they must have been. None of 
those comic looks which our common soldier casts, 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 69, 

as he passes the stranger; no laughter behind 
doors; no loud calls to one another; none of those 
jokes flung across from window to window, as if 
by accident, scarcely restrained even by the pres- 
ence of very high officers. These Italians are 
gentle, docile, inclined to melancholy. Most of 
them seem very young, the beard not yet grown. 
As the colonel passed, they came to attention, and 
saluted calmly, deliberately; and when he had 
gone by they did not feel that need of words and 
movement which a five-minute restraint calls 
forth in the French. 

The officers are gentle with their men. " What 
a good work it is," the colonel said as he went 
upstairs to< the dormitories, " especially in my 
grade, to have charge of a regiment, to watch 
over the bodies and souls of one's men! I know 
nothing more interesting or nobler." He said 
this with great simplicity and an air of conviction. 
At the entrance of the room of Company 6 an old 
captain, who had heard us coming, stood, his 
hand at his cap. He was one of those men — we 
have all known such — who put all their life and 
thoughts into their profession; enthusiastic, a 
martinet, good at heart, but very formidable in 
manner. The colonel shakes hands with him. 
" You see, gentlemen, I am so fortunate in my 
captains that I leave them complete liberty as to 
the ' stowage ' of effects. What you will see here 
is this man's taste." Upon which the old captain 



70 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

saluted, much gratified. Decidedly, this is a very 
good man for a colonel. The room of the 6th 
is neat, like the whole barracks. The beds are not 
very numerous, for the effective force is kept low. 
They are of iron, shaped like an X, and folded up 
lengthwise. My friend, who understands these 
matters, avers that the stowage for the 6th is 
excellent. Their clothing, which the soldiers keep 
on a shelf, as our men do, is arranged with perfect 
regularity, not an inch out of line in either direc- 
tion — above, the knapsack; below, the canteen, 
shaped like a little funnel. But the men have less 
clothing than ours. The bread, which we taste, is 
inferior to that of the French soldiers; and the 
magazines, with supplies for mobilization, do not 
seem to contain any great store of food. But it is 
possible we did not see all. 

As we were taking leave of the colonel, he 
showed us three doors barred with iron, opening 
on the entrance hall. " You can guess," he said; 
" can you not? When I took possession here, 
there were inscriptions above them, indicating 
that they were prison rooms. I could not tolerate 
the idea. It was most unfortunate for the soldier, 
on his arrival, to be made to feel that here was a 
jail, or at least a place where he would be unhappy, 
and would suffer punishment. I effaced all the 
inscriptions with my own hand that very day." 

We went away, finally, with favourable im- 
pressions; and it would be well if certain persons 



PROVINCIAL LIFE, 7 1 

whose ready-made opinion forbids study of the 
progress in military affairs made by other na- 
tions, men who always speak in very slighting 
terms of the Italian army, could have seen what 
we did. 

When we asked from what parts of Italy came 
the soldiers of the Twenty-seventh Regiment, the 
answer was: "From Leghorn, Udine, and Mes- 
sina," Now, Leghorn belongs to northern Italy, 
Udine to central, and Messina to southern. Each 
Italian corps (except the twenty-two battalions 
of Alpinists, exclusively composed of men from the 
northern frontier), is thus recruited from one or 
two districts in each one of three great terri- 
torial zones. In the same regiment, in the same 
company, men of different provinces meet and live 
side by side for three years. And not only the 
soldiers of the active army, but the reserves, are 
grouped on the same principle. In case of mobili- 
zation, Sicilians would go to join their regiments 
in Lombardy, and Piedmontese in Calabria. The 
system is loaded with disadvantages, but its reason 
is apparent: the recruiting was organized thus in 
order to< fuse the different elements, and no objec- 
tion could prevail against the wish to complete, 
in the army, the unification of Italy. Has this at- 
tempt been successful? 

Beyond doubt, the fusion has begun. Sectional 
rivalries are no longer what they were. The in- 
terior frontiers of the Italy of former times grow 



72 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

less conspicuous day by clay. Bui the work is far 
from being finished. If you question anyone 

Whom you meet as to his nationality, using only 

the mosi general terms thai the language affords, 
he will say: 44 I am a. Piedmontese, a Venetian, 
a Calabrian, a Sicilian. 94 He will not say: "I am 
an Italian. " In speaking of marriages! of com- 

liiurc, or of politics, the inhabitant of some duchy 
Or kingdom 0l former days will speak of a neigh- 
bouring province without the fraternal feeling. 

A Neapolitan will say, for example: 4l I do not like 
to go to Rome. Those Romans treat you like a 

foreigner." 
Bui differences are especially noticeable — and I 

do not hesitate to assert that a trace of actual 
animosity still exists — between the men of the 
north and those of the south; between the rich, 
industrious north and the poor south; between 
the reflecting north and the talkative south; be- 
tween the Milanese who has his villa on the shore 
of Lago Maggiore, and the Mcsscnian who has 
an electoral fief in the mountains of Sicily. J add 
a few words, picked np here and there, which have 
struck me. 

A rich merchant of the north said to me: 
"Napoleon had the righl idea: a kingdom of 

upper Italy, a kingdom of lower Italy. They are 
two territories that cannot have the same 
institutions." 

A Piedmontese: u We are too long a country. 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 73 

The head and tail can never touch; or, if they are 
forced to it, the head will bite the tail." 

Another: " Do you know what is one of the 
principal obstacles to the republican propaganda 
in our country? It is that the man preaching 
revolution must be a native of some province. 
And that is enough to render him unpopular in all 
the others! Imagine a man from the Marches 
preaching to a Calabrian! " 

A Florentine: u You are much more centralized 
in France than we are. At the same time, we are 
so ourselves far more than is good for us. Among 
the great people in all the provinces, here in Flor- 
ence, in Rome, Naples, Palermo, if French is not 
spoken, the language used is a patois. The pure 
Italian is neglected. By this slow and gentle pro- 
cedure we protest indirectly against the excessive 
unity that many people would force upon us. 
Signor Crispi had an intention of founding an 
academy of dialects at Rome. Time failed him to 
carry out this very original idea, but he appre- 
ciated the vitality of the provincial languages, 
and you may be sure that in this persistence 
of dialect, in high society especially, there is 
a very deep sentiment of pride and of indepen- 
dence." 

Now, all those who spoke to me in this way were 
partisans of Italian unity. They called my atten- 
tion to this fact, saying that while political unity 
was indeed a good thing, varieties of life and 



74 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DA Y. 

humour, local traditions, the dignity of the towns, 
were also good things. 

This evening I wandered in the old quarter of 
Bologna. The street was narrow between two 
rows of dark arcades, where passers-by walked in- 
visible. I myself kept in the light. At a corner I 
heard outcries. A man like a ragged bandit, in a 
pointed hat, emerges from a lane, dragging a child, 
who resists and cries for succour. " Soccorso! soc- 
corso! " He is tragic, the little boy. He stretches 
out his arms and his head toward the dark gallery, 
where he detects moving shadows. His eyes shine, 
grown big with fear. " Soccorso! soccorso! " The 
man drags him on. After five or six rods, the 
struggle continuing, half a dozen people have 
made their appearance in the road. One of them, 
in a cloak reaching to his heels, grasps the child 
by his free arm, and coolly, though his lips twitch 
with anger, says to the man in rags: " Stop and 
explain yourself! " The other looks at him with 
a sly glance, sees that nothing can be done, and 
begins a sort of argument about the boy. After 
three or four sentences, the man in the cloak takes 
possession of the child, then sets him at liberty; 
and the little fellow, wild with terror, runs away 
at full speed. The two men again eye each other, 
then go their separate ways. 

In France, we should have begun by rescuing 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 75 

the child from his oppressor in the name of im- 
mortal principles; and almost certainly the two 
men would then have come to blows without fur- 
ther words. 

It is curious, the story of this church of S. 
Francis, which, its restoration being completed, 
ranks with the purest examples of the Italian 
Gothic. I know it well, though the guidebooks 
do not mention it. One of my Bolognese friends 
had taken me to visit it with much affection; and 
another takes me to it again, that I may see the 
progress of the repairs. Standing before the 
facade of red brick, the windows still blocked up, 
the latter relates to me through what a series of ad- 
ventures the old building has passed. The French 
of the revolution, about 1796, made it a custom- 
house. Even after the Empire had fallen, this prof- 
anation continued, and it was not until 1840 that 
Pope Gregory XVI., who ruled Bologna through 
one of his legates, restored the church to the 
Conventual Minorite Franciscans. The latter un- 
dertook to reopen it, and the false taste of the 
architects of the time rendered the building un- 
recognizable. The columns were heavily coated 
with plaster, frightful chapels broke its outlines, 
and paintings after the manner of Epinal gave it 
the effect of a decorated granary. General 
Cialdini was, perhaps, struck with this resem- 
blance, for in 1866 he siezed the church and made 



76 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

it a military storehouse. Thus it remained, de- 
plorably repaired, violently desecrated, a thing 
forgotten, until very recently. 

But Bologna has her artists, jealous for the 
city's honour. Some of the most influential citi- 
zens of the town — Conte Nerio Malvezzi, Conte 
Joseph Grabinski, Signor Alfonzo Rubbiani — set 
on foot negotiations to rescue and restore the poor 
edifice. They formed great projects, and — a 
noticeable thing — they were immediately sup- 
ported by public sentiment. After much effort, 
they obtained a gift of the church to the city; and 
the city in turn at once presented it to the car- 
dinal-archbishop. Then, in 1886, the work of 
restoration began. The original plans of the 
building had been found. It was proposed to re- 
store it in all its ancient grace. To this end the 
chapels were demolished, the columns set free, the 
coating removed from the walls, the windows re- 
constructed and new glass put in. 

Private citizens of Bologna, the gentlemen I 
have mentioned, with a few others, undertook the 
task. Up to the present time more than 100,000 
lire [$20,000] have been spent; and in 1888 Queen 
Margherita, deeply interested in the work, ob- 
tained from government a grant of 20,000 lire. 
Then the sponsors of S. Francis at once bought 
and demolished the old buildings of the coach 
office, which spoiled one side of the apse; and 
they discovered, repaired, and gave a suitable 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 77 

place, on the edge of the street, to three wonder- 
ful tombs with precious colonnettes, found half 
destroyed; those of three great Bolognese com- 
mentators, Accurse, Odofredo, and Rolandino di 
Romanzi. I visited the work-yard where stone- 
cutters were restoring the beautiful capitals from 
one of these tombs. I still hear my friend's sym- 
pathetic tone of voice as he said to one of the work- 
men in his blouse, standing on a scaffolding: " Will 
you kindly permit a stranger who is interested in 
art to see how we are getting on in our work at 
S. Francis' ?" 

Everywhere you meet, more or less, this care for 
ancient things. The Italians well understand their 
artistic wealth. They value it more than we do 
ours. In their case there is public sentiment, 
while all that we have are archaeologists and a 
commission on historic monuments. 

This watchful care is of ancient date in Italy. 
At the time when the Council of Ten governed 
Venice there was a decree issued in respect to the 
art of glass-making. Therein was the following 
little article: " If a workman transports his art 
into a foreign country, to the detriment of the 
republic, he shall be enjoined to return. If he does 
not obey, those nearest him shall be thrown 
into prison. If he still persists in remaining in 
a foreign land, an emissary shall be sent to kill 
him." 

The section ends, however, with these words of 



78 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

mercy: " After the workman's death, his relatives 
shall be set at liberty." 

Florence. 

How captivated one is in Florence by this vision 
of yellow houses, this idle carelessness of land- 
scape, people, attitudes, voices, this abundance of 
flowers, all these tranquillizing, exquisite things, 
signs of a country already southern! Here are 
the same little flower-women as of old, at the 
street corners, with their baskets full of pinks, 
heliotrope, roses, and a pretty variety of nas- 
turtiums with black centres. In this delaying 
season, while the mountains which enfold the 
city are all white with snow, a truss of sorrel 
going past is a delight to the eye. But the 
Florence of the suburbs is especially beautiful in 
colour. Few people go there, for there are no pub- 
lic buildings to be visited. It has its poetry, how- 
ever. The streets are broad, dusty, bordered with 
low houses, very white or yellow. A new growth 
of trees rises here and there above the walls of the 
close-shut gardens. 

From time to time there are the fruit shops that 
are so attractive to the eye: a deep, narrow room, 
always open, a doorway framed with a wreath of 
golden colocynth, clusters of bananas hanging 
from the rafters; baskets full of tomatoes, nuts, 
grapes, oranges, lemons, which mingle their per- 
fume with an odour of rancid oil; in the midst a 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 79 

woman seated, her shoulders covered with a pink 
shawl, her eyes shining in the half-darkness; quite 
in the back of the shop the spark of light from a 
lamp burning before the Madonna. In the morn- 
ing you will see stopping before the door long 
carts shaped like boats, painted red. 

My French friend, the officer, who knows Africa 
well, returns from an expedition in the suburban 
quarters. 

He is in Italy for the first time. "Oh!" 
he says, " we only want an occasional burnouse in 
these streets to feel as if we were in the East. Now 
I see why they took it so hard that we should 
have Tunis. The East begins here." 

This expression is, perhaps, too strong. But 
the remark has truth in it. It explains that some- 
thing of the charm, something in the manners, 
something in the people, of this country, which is 
not altogether Latin. 

I was not here in time for the first performance 
of the RantzaiL But I attend the second. The 
great auditorium of the Pergola is completely 
filled. The success of Mascagni is quite a national 
affair. From all the provinces of Italy people have 
come to applaud. This is evident as you glance 
over the house. The most varied types are here. 
There is, first, the one most common of all among 
the men, the heavy Piedmontese face, with short, 
thick nose, the moustache strong, curving, droop- 
ing at the corners of the mouth. Energy, even 



So THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

harshness, appear to be its dominant note. At 
the same time this stout man talking with his 
neighbour — who may be a merchant, a manufact- 
urer, a deputy, an impresario, there is no telling — 
has a shrewd smile; and when he lifts his heavy 
hand, the gesture, oddly enough, is refined and very 
expressive. Then you ask yourself whether this 
coarse body may not perhaps conceal a soul that is 
very keen at times. 

Near by are Florentines, thoroughbreds, un- 
mistakably, artist heads, men of wealth and lux- 
urious habits, extremely impressionable, with that 
elegance and that reserve which characterize so 
many Italian faces. 

Also I remark men from Southern Italy, very 
black-haired, pale, more excitable in look. Some 
have faces very short, the beard growing forward 
and very curly; crafty, passionate, defiant. 
Framed, they would resemble the portraits of the 
old condottieri that we see in galleries. 

Almost no one, notwithstanding the festal char- 
acter of the occasion, has the silk hat. My neigh- 
bour assures me that the derby is preferred on 
aesthetic grounds, the Italians being of opinion 
that the black campanile with which we cover our 
heads destroys the harmony of outline. 

Among the women the Juno type, or that of 
the Minerva, is most frequent; many beautiful 
dark eyes, and regular, imposing features. The 
blonde Dianas are more rare — I mean among 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 81 

women in society; in the lanes of Venice and 
Naples there are plenty of them. 

And now the curtain rises. Mascagni has no 
cause to complain of public coldness. I count the 
recalls. The young composer is called out seven 
times in the first act, six in the second, fourteen in 
the third, and eight in the fourth. Each time 
that the applause breaks out, the actors — of whom 
two are very good — stop. One of them goes 
toward the side scene, and returns with Mascagni, 
who, smiling and serious, salutes, indicates with 
his free hand the actors, as if to say that the honour 
of the success is entirely theirs, and backs off the 
stage a little awkwardly. He has a broad, genial, 
intelligent face, this young maestro, beardless, the 
mouth large and well cut, the forehead high, under 
bushy hair. One recognizes a nature simple and 
free, intoxicated with a fame so precocious — pre- 
mature, say some, although there can be no doubt 
about his talent. I strive to determine how much, 
in the almost constant ovation that he receives, 
is sincere admiration, and how much is a foregone 
conclusion due to the flattering of national vanity. 
I do, indeed, believe that many of my neighbours 
whose applause is the noisiest are doing all this 
in cold blood. But they are people of another 
race, admirable actors even when they have no 
need to be, and I do not know. 

One of them, in an entr'acte, a great friend of 
Mascagni, relates to me the composer's history. 



82 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DA Y. 

It begins, as biographies of artists often do, in the 
extreme of poverty. Mascagni is a Tuscan. He 
was born at Leghorn, a purely commercial city, 
whose streets and harbour I saw one foggy day, 
of which I remember nothing. In 1884, after 
three years' study in the Conservatory at Milan, 
poor in money, and endowed, it seems, with a for- 
midable appetite, he engaged himself as subdirec- 
tor with an operetta troupe, at a salary of five lire a 
day. Two years he lived this vagabond life, going 
from one little theatre to another, constantly 
changing impresarios. He became completely dis- 
gusted. Like most Italians (who, as a rule, marry 
very young) he had taken a wife. He had met, 
loved, and married a young singer, poor like him- 
self. And near the close of 1885, they established 
themselves at Cevignola, a little city of Apulia, 
near Foggia. Here Mascagni made friends. He 
gave lessons on the piano, and began a grand 
opera, William Radcliff, which is not yet finished. 
Then, one day, a great event happened at Cevi- 
gnola. The municipal council had a meeting; 
then, the mayor went to see Mascagni. " Can 
you play all instruments? " the mayor inquired. 

" I can," rejoined Mascagni. 

" From the clarionet to the harp? " 

" Certainly I can." 

" In that case we appoint you director of the 
municipal orchestra, with a salary of a hundred 
lire [twenty dollars] a month." 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 83 

Fortune was beginning to make advances to 
Mascagni; but the post of direttore delta scuola 
orchestrale would not have sufficed to give the poor 
musician fame, or even the humblest competency. 
After a time Signor Edoardo Sonzogno, the rich 
Milanese publisher, proprietor of the Secolo, and 
a sort of Maecenas for Italian artists, offered a 
prize for a one-act opera. Mascagni resolved to 
try; and composed, upon a libretto by his friend 
Taglioni, from a novel by Verga, the score of the 
Cavalleria rusticana. He was one of the three suc- 
cessful competitors, and the only one whose work, 
represented at Rome in 1890, was enthusiastically 
received. 

The rest of the story — I mean to say the journey 
of the Cavalleria over Europe — is too well known 
to need mention. What is not, however, matter 
of general notoriety is the fact that the Sicilian 
author, from whom the libretto had been bor- 
rowed, seeing the unexpected success of Mas- 
cagni's opera,, instituted a suit, which has just been 
decided, and the rights of the poet have been 
valued at an enormous sum. " Never mind," says 
my neighbour, " it is Signor Sonzogno who has 
to pay." I ask him, " But why abandon a vein so 
happily opened? Why subjects like William 
Radcliff and the Rantzan? Do you not think 
an Italian would do better, even in music, to draw 
inspiration from the poetry, so abundant, of his 
native land? " 



84 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

He was about to answer. We were at the 
moment in the foyer, or, rather, under the por- 
tico of La Pergola, in a crowd of people. There 
was noisy talking all about us; an aspect of joy, 
of true emotion, pervaded all these Italian faces; 
the pleasure so rare, so coveted, not yet ex- 
hausted, of welcoming a national work, a new 
talent; perhaps a successor to Verdi, now pass- 
ing off the stage? A sudden stir in the crowd 
made us look round. Mascagni himself, bare- 
headed, his. arms linked with those of two friends, 
young like himself, came running down the stair- 
case, brilliant with light. The three were all 
laughing and leaping down the stairs like boys. 
And he seemed so happy, he rejoiced in his young 
fame with such simplicity, he was so> thoroughly 
the poet carried away by the rapture of his first 
success, that I did as everyone else was doing — ap- 
plauded him with all my heart. 

Siena. 
Difficult of access is Siena gentile. One must 
love her to go in search of her, so slowly and so far, 
among hills to which only the accommodation 
trains give access. But how she rewards you; how 
she makes you forget the route! Ah, the dear 
city, who takes your heart forever! I saw her one 
evening and one morning. In the morning she 
was interesting and beautiful. I visited with con- 
tinuous and augmented pleasure her many- 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 85 

coloured cathedral, her Libreria whose walls are 
covered with masterpieces, her museum, her 
streets, her great market place, peculiar of form, 
designed, says the legend, on the model of the 
cloak of an unknown pilgrim who' once passed 
through the city. From the top of her campanile 
she appeared all red, amid the green of her hills, 
divided into several quarters, of which each one 
is a labyrinth, as if the city had been made of huge 
sea shells with regular windings laid down side by 
side. 

But by night Siena was marvellous and beautiful. 
Anyone who has not seen this city in the moon- 
light has no idea of the beauty of shadows, and of 
their suggestive, dreamy power over the mind. 
For the stones do not say the same by night and 
day. By night their colour is effaced, the details of 
ornamentation disappear; outlines alone rise clear 
in the air, and with them the essential physiognomy 
of the past. The mediaeval world is there in all 
its life. Figure to> yourself one of the dark and 
winding lanes that surround an old French cathe- 
dral; multiply infinitely, on steep slopes of ground, 
the unexpected turnings of the streets, the but- 
tresses flung out into space, the overhanging 
chimera-gargoyles, the doorways of dense shadow, 
the streaks of blue light, the little bridges thrown 
across from one palace to another, the fret-work of 
chimneys against the stars, and you will have some 
idea of the old Ghibelline city. The people seem 



86 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

to have a consciousness that they inhabit a world 
of fantasy belonging to the past. They go about 
noiselessly. Their shops cast no light upon the 
pavement. No noise, no startling note of modern 
life, interrupts the dream of ancient times in which 
one moves. 

I was accompanied by a young Italian, capti- 
vated like myself by the beauty of the hour and the 
place. I had met him in the train from Florence 
to Siena. He was very tall, very slender, hatchet- 
faced, with soft, expressive eyes; he wore a blue 
woollen cap ending in a point at the back, and on 
the right side of it was embroidered, in white let- 
ters, Siena. A student, undoubtedly. I had for a 
long time been an auditor of his conversation with 
an old Sienese, my neighbour. The old man was 
lamenting the lost splendour of the university. 

" In my time," he said, " we were twelve hun- 
dred. What professors we had! They were men 
famous in all the sciences. And they lived among 
us; they belonged to our city. To-day, for most 
men, to be sent to Siena would be exile." 

And the youth replied with deferential courtesy. 
He also knew the names of the former professors, 
the dates of their deaths, or the chairs that they 
now occupied elsewhere. With fifty years be- 
tween, it was an echo of that tender affection, that 
erudite respect which overflowed in the old man's 
heart. 

" How many are you to-day? " I asked. 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 87 

" About three hundred," was the reply. " A 
hundred in lav/, and the rest in medicine." 

" And you belong " 

" To the law school," he said, touching his cap. 
" We have resumed the insignia of the different 
schools since the centenary fetes at Bologna. The 
law, you see, wears the blue cap; medicine is 
red, mathematics green, literature white and 
pink." 

" Why two colours? " 

" It was white first. But when the students 
entered their class Carducci said to- them: 'You 
look like cooks.' And they added the pink. Do 
you get off at Siena, signor? " 

" Yes." 

" Permit me to- serve as your guide. You arrive 
by night. That is the best time to get an impres- 
sion of our Siena." 

And he accompanied me, talking in a low voice, 
becoming silent when it was especially beautiful, 
indicating by a gesture some palace outline or 
turn of street in the moonlight. He told me 
that he was from Pistoja; that he had come to the 
University of Siena because prices were so low 
here, — a room at twenty lire the month, board at 
sixty, — while Bologna or Padua involved much 
greater expense; that he had a great love for the 
old Tuscan city, and for history, and for Dante. 
" I am very enthusiastic about Dante," he said. 
" I have studied the question whether Dante ever 



88 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

came to Siena, as some assert on account of the 
passage concerning Pietro Vanucci. It has been 
maintained that he passed through every city of 
which he speaks. But I argue for the negative in 
a pamphlet." 

" And how came you to interest yourself so 
much in the poet? " 

" When I was very young I read, up there in 
Pistoja, among our mountains, those passages of 
the Divina Commedia that concern our city; and 
from that I went on to study the whole poem. I 
love Dante so much that I have collected at home 
- — a casa — more than two hundred volumes about 
<my poet. I have twenty busts and medals which 
represent him, and I collect engravings of him, 
too. My thesis for the doctors' degree is to be: 
' On the Law in the Divina Commedia, and in the 
Summa Theologice of St. Thomas. 5 " 

These things he said to me in fragments, as we 
wandered with noiseless footsteps through the 
streets with their shadows cut by the bluish 
moonlight. 

When I returned to the Black Eagle, my host- 
ess, seeing me so delighted with Siena gentile, said: 
" What a pity, signor, you should not be here in 
August! There is such a beautiful festa, with all 
the old costumes of Siena, the heralds, the nobles, 
the tradesmen, with banners from all the quarters, 
coming out into the square and in procession 
through the streets." 



PROVINCIAL LIFE. 89 

" What is it they celebrate? " 

She looked up proudly. " The victory, signor, 
gained over the Florentines in the Quattro-Cento" 

Oh, long-enduring popular memory, which we 
no longer know! 



II. 

ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA. 

Rome is not a city to be visited. One ought to 
live there, to see her in her hours of supreme 
beauty, to make love to her as one does to a 
woman, and have her smile back at you in return, 
as a woman does. And these are moments rare 
and unexpected, which guides are powerless to 
provide; moments whose sweetness captivates the 
whole soul. 

You are coming back at night from some expe- 
dition to a distant ruin, very tired of history and 
of learned explanations and of all the material 
which is intended to excite your imagination — and 
often kills it; you are returning, and it is twilight. 
Mists arise from the vast plain, and are rosy in the 
sunset. You are walking through a dark street, 
and you lift your eyes. In front of you the hill 
is all in full light, crossed with high yellow fagades, 
a group of palaces — each in itself a stately build- 
ing; all, as a group, a very masterpiece of fancy; 
and here and there a slender black cypress, or the 
sheaf of a palm tree. You turn; behind you there 
are only bluish shadows, roofs of houses, which are 

90 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 9 1 

nothing but long blue outlines; the pure curve of 
many domes against a light sky, the colour of pale 
gold, like Byzantine haloes. Oh! then, how one 
feels the spell of this unique city; how easy to 
understand those painters, or those tired and 
dreamy souls who come to Rome for three weeks, 
and never go away! 

In truth, on seeing Rome anew, I have felt that 
I loved her for the first time. But to say why, 
and of what elements this love is composed, I am 
not able. There is something about it, as about 
all loves, that is inexplicable. 

I think the welcome the Romans give one may 
have something to do> with it. They have a natu- 
ral hospitality, at once familiar and reserved, which 
comes of a long habit of receiving. Among the 
Roman nobles especially there is a very peculiar 
sentiment. Italians of the North or South, Ger- 
mans, French, Spaniards, Russians, Englishmen, 
are equal in the presence of the graceful, impartial 
welcoming of the Roman. Let them come. 
Their language, their nature, the character of their 
minds will be understood; enough of the contem- 
porary history of their country will be known to 
make conversation about their homes possible; 
there will be open to them all, with equal courtesy, 
drawing rooms which are galleries, and galleries 
which are museums; and each stranger will feel 
almost as if he were at home in this world through 
which all the world passes in its turn. This equal- 



92 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

handed welcome conceals, perhaps, an underlying 
pride inherited from the ancient masters of the 
world; a conviction of superiority which the strifes 
of younger peoples, their successes, their con- 
quests, the vicissitudes of private destinies, the 
fate of Rome itself cannot touch and scarcely 
interests. It is agreeable, however; and though it 
is anything but homage, it flatters as if it were. 

Nothing is so astonishing, moreover, as to meet 
people whom nothing astonishes. I imagine that 
we are, in a degree, to the Romans like caravans, 
not now loaded with a tribute of silver, but bring- 
ing news, ideas, a suggestion of the world's prog- 
ress. You think you are going to tell them some- 
thing. But they half knew it already, or at least 
conjectured it. Preceding caravans had prepared 
them. They had seen, before you, other buzzuri of 
your nation or of some other, who had brought 
them the information. No city being more visited 
than their own, they would have an idea of every- 
thing, if they never travelled. In fact, however, 
they do travel, in most cases. They have friends 
or relatives in all the great capitals; they have the 
journals and the reviews; and they have the gift 
of divination, which comes from long experience 
of men. 

I arrive, at about ten o'clock, at the house of 
the Princess A. Three drawing rooms en suite, 
with no one in them, exquisitely furnished and 
hung with fine pictures. In the fourth the 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 93 

princess, seated at her work, in dark dress, blonde, 
beautiful, with a soft, regular beauty — an Italian 
of one of those grand, sad types for whom the 
Italians might have invented their pretty word 
morbidezza. Her husband, reclining on a sofa, is 
reading a review. He rises, advances toward me, 
presents me, and resumes the conversation, begun 
elsewhere, with that ease, that suppleness of mind 
and movement that is so easy to transmit, so 
hard to acquire. We talk on many subjects. He 
has ideas upon each, and — which is less usual — he 
has read upon each. " You know this German 
work? " he says to me; or: " You would do well to 
consult the book an Englishman has written about 
this — Lord L., a friend of mine; it is very inter- 
esting." He Is not ignorant concerning the last 
play, the last novel, and the last fashion in 
Paris. Nor is his wife. I have no doubt they 
understand England, Austria, Germany equally 
well. She talks but little, but with great good 
sense and a sort of careless dignity. A droll word 
brings to her lips a smile, very expressive, instantly 
vanishing. The lovely blonde head, slightly bent, 
remains motionless for the most part, and the re- 
flection of the lamp does not change its place on 
the big carved gold beads of her necklace. 

One of the habitues of the house comes in, a per- 
son from Calabria or elsewhere, a buzzuro. In 
their presence he is hopelessly provincial. He 
chances to speak of Italy — " this young nation." 



94 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Prince A., languid, without lifting his eyes, 
withdrawing and replacing the pin of his scarf, 
says: " Yes, very young, with many centuries 
upon its shoulders." 

This feeling of the glory of ancient Rome is to 
be remarked in all classes of society. It seems to 
me to greatly take precedence, at least in the heart 
of Romans, properly so called, of any pride as to 
modern Rome. A man employed in an office said 
to me: " It is the greatness of Rome that has 
made the malaria sometimes seem important. 
The latter is exaggerated on account of the 
former." Just now I saw at a street corner two 
ragged, bare-footed boys, of whom the elder might 
be twelve. Each had in his hand a bit of pointed 
stick like a poniard, and was trying to touch the 
other. I stopped to watch them, and the duel grew 
much more lively in consequence. After a few 
minutes, in which the contest hung undecided, the 
taller boy cried out: " You shall see that I am a 
Roman of Rome!" — Romano di Roma! And he 
gave a thrust which tore the other's shirt-sleeve 
from shoulder to wrist. Near by, seated in a door- 
way, an old woman, for whom in her youth lads 
may have fought with steel, looked on, laughing 
silently. 

The earlier population of Rome has been 
swamped by an invasion of strangers. In 1870 the 
city had 226,000 inhabitants; it has now, we are 
told, nearly 400,000; whence it follows that, of four 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 95 

men one meets in the street, only two, on the aver- 
age, are Romans. The latter, however, keep their 
modes of life and many of their customs. In the 
transformed city they still use the Roman patois; 
they dwell in the old quarters; they are, like their 
ancestors, intelligent, disposed to a labour that has 
many intervals of repose; very much inclined to 
depend for a livelihood upon the generosity of the 
great, and to> consider as Quiritarian rights the 
various sinecures of public and private administra- 
tion; very domestic; apparently a little severe, 
but only apparently so, in the government of their 
families; somewhat jealous; and extravagantly 
fond of little trips into the country, in which 
almost nothing is spent. The women still wear 
the bright-coloured corset outside the dress. The 
men of the seignorial domains, the remote tenute, 
come on certain days to visit their friends in the 
suburbs and obtain supplies. Butchers, to stretch 
apart the carcasses of veal and mutton, use green 
reeds, often with the leaves still on them. No one 
cares very much about the morrow. Everything 
is done with diplomatic slowness, col tempo. If, 
late in the afternoon, you cross the Piazza Co- 
lonna, you will find it full of men who are there by 
force of immemorial tradition, talking in groups 
of the affairs of the city or of their own. The most 
important rural enterprises, and the smallest also, 
are discussed there, under the walls of the Palazzo 
Chigi. Sometimes a big, sunburned fellow, put- 



96 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

ting his hand in his pocket, half withdraws it full 
of corn, t which he quickly drops back again, that 
the public may not see too plainly what is going 
on. A sale of seed has been made. And you can 
observe any day, at the same hour and place, that 
the old Roman habit of walking in the Corso, that 
insignificant, narrow street, remains triumphant, 
notwithstanding the via Nazionale and the new 
quarters. 

No, the transformation of Rome is not the act 
of the Romans. Never would they have devised 
that Piano regolatore, daring even to brutality, 
which takes little account of churches and historic 
spots. Never would they have reconstructed the 
Ponte San Angelo. If they had begun its demoli- 
tion, and had come upon those mediaeval arches 
which Bernini covered in and crowned with 
statues, they would have stopped short. And had 
they suspected, under the mediaeval work, a third 
bridge of the Roman epoch, they would merely 
have uncovered a fragment, to have one ruin the 
more. At heart they were, and still are, in favour 
of respectful streets, that go round the old struc- 
ture, whatever it is, bowing before it in their 
fashion. But they will not protest, and they will 
use the new bridge. Among the habits they retain 
from their ancient lineage is that of being present 
at revolutions, not as indifferent persons, but as 
connoisseurs, 

I have seen at his house the commendatore 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 97 

G. M. He was in his study, but received me in a 
little room adjacent, a kind of salotto. Why let the 
visitor see that one is preparing a report, that one 
has bundles of papers, letters, open books, on one's 
table? Accordingly, to receive me, he came out 
from the sanctuary of his private affairs. 

" My dear commendatore," I said to him, " will 
you tell me about this failure in building here in 
Rome?" 

He went to a narrow window looking out 
upon a wide landscape, the prati di Castello, the 
Vatican, and Monte Mario, and at the right the 
beginning of the plain of the Tiber. 

" From this distance," he said, " the quarter 
you are looking at seems to be built over and in- 
habited. It does not specially differ in appearance 
from parts of the city nearer to us. But really it 
is half ruinous and half deserted. On the opposite 
side of the city, also, near the railway, on the 
Viminal and the Pincio, there are similar ruins. 
They cause us great shame, and we Romans shall 
never encourage the plan of a world's fair in Rome 
until they have disappeared. Should we call the 
whole world to look at these new ruins? 

" We were too hasty and too extravagant in our 
plans. This was the first mistake, and it involved 
many others. Ancient Rome cannot be handled 
like a modern city. Its ground undermined, 
pierced, its structures all of different dates, the 
many ancient buildings still in part standing, the 



98 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

great irregularities of the surface, the habits of an 
ancient people, not to be modified in a day, were 
all obstacles which should have been taken into 
account. Slowly Rome might have been trans- 
formed. The idea is no sacrilege, nor is it new. 
The French had it in the beginning of the cen- 
tury. Near the close of the pontifical rule Mon- 
signor di Merode had begun upon it. He 
represented the element cf progress, as Cardinal 
Antonelli was tradition incarnate. Merode is the 
man who stands at the beginning of the great Ro- 
man works. To him we owe the construction of 
the railway station, of the barracks of Macao, and 
especially of the via Nazionale, which would have 
been much finer had its original plan been fol- 
lowed. The street was intended to pass the 
Quirinal. Thence it was to cross by a viaduct over 
Trajan's Forum, and with a broad sweep come out 
into the Piazza di Venezia, at the end of the Corso. 
This was an excellent scheme, if it had been car- 
ried out. 

" But Monsignor di Merode had other plans 
still more extensive. He had w r orked at them with 
Lamoriciere. He was still occupied with them 
after the Italians became masters of Rome, 
and discussed them with Baron Haussmann, who 
took shelter here during the Franco-Prussian war. 
Haussmann was much interested. We are told 
that one day, summing up his advice, he said, 
designating the extreme regions around the rail- 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 99 

way station, not at that time built over: ' You 
see, monsignor, your Vatican, your museums, your 
galleries, are all fine, but they are cold. I would 
g-et your statues out into the open air, and lay out 
for them here a sacred Bois de Boulogne/ 

" This was not only a jeu d' esprit, but it was wise. 
Many Romans think, as I do, that it would have 
been politic not to have sought abruptly to dis- 
place the centre of Rome, but to have stopped, 
with some Bois de Boulogne, sacred or secular, 
the growth of the city toward these remote 
regions, which are too extensive, too difficult to 
cover; and to have concentrated all the effort 
toward the Prati di Castello, thus making a new 
and compact quarter between the Tiber and the 
Vatican. 

" But the time for this has gone by. The via 
Nazionale, instead of passing the Quirinal, only 
make the access to it easier, and then turned 
abruptly, with repeated zigzags and a heavy grade, 
to strike the Corso at a right angle. Many im- 
mense works were projected and undertaken all 
at once. After the first years of the Italian occu- 
pation, when the conquest had been consummated 
by the residence of the court at Rome, when the 
population was seen to increase with such rapidity, 
then came a fever of enterprise : There was the plan 
of walling in the Tiber, which has cost more than 
150,000,000 [$30,000,000]; there was a determi- 
nation that new Rome should surpass the old and 



ioo THE ITALIANS OF TODAY. 

absorb it; that it should be a great modern city 
and a stronghold; and at this time came the 
famous Piano regolatore, which would render Rome 
unrecognizable, and has already made it, at the 
cost of sacrifices that I will not enumerate, very 
different from what it was. 

" The first fault, a fault of plan, was, then, to 
propose improvising a capital. Unintentionally, 
no doubt, but certainly, speculation was encour- 
aged, and the general excitement fanned to fever 
heat. The Italians had the idea that Rome would 
never cease growing. The Eternal City became an 
open market for enterprise; and the first new 
houses having been very profitable to their build- 
ers, everybody was eager to build, not merely 
capitalists, but ' promoters/ men who had noth- 
ing but the coat they wore and a facility for bor- 
rowing money. This went so far that we have 
seen one of these ' men of the moment/ a tenth- 
rate speculator, failing splendidly for 40,000,000! 

" Ah! the happy days of madness! From 1883 
to 1887 it was a ^ fairyland. The unimproved land 
of the new quarters, the gardens with vines and 
fruit trees growing together, the precious vigne 
so dear to the Romans, were bought at large 
prices. Princes cut up their parks and villas, 
speculative banks grew like mushrooms under the 
shadow of the great national banks. It was 
enough to be acquainted with one of the higher 
employees to be accepted as a customer. The can- 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. ioi 

didate for ownership in land, penniless, bought his 
lot, an area fabbricabile. He borrowed money to 
make his payment, and signed a note for three 
months, renewable, which was discounted in Italy, 
and, as a rule, was marketable in France. The 
bank took a mortgage on the land. The founda- 
tions of the building were laid. The bank fur- 
nished a new loan to build the first story, and, 
the story being built, took another mortgage; and 
so on up to the roof. You may well suppose that 
walls went up on all sides! 

" So many walls went up that the number of 
houses threatened to exceed the number of 
tenants. A certain uneasiness began to be 
manifested. This increased by reason of rival- 
ries, actual or feigned, between the National 
Bank and the Banca Romana. A rumour 
became current that their relations with each 
other were not strictly fraternal. But we 
should have gotten out of it with proroga- 
tions and a modest disaster, such as all nations 
allow themselves now and then, but for the ag- 
gressive policy of Signor Crispi, which ruined 
everything. France grew uneasy. The French 
banks hesitated, then became positively unfriendly; 
and notes to- the value of six or seven millions, no 
longer finding credit, fell back upon Rome. 

11 This was the end. The banks that had been 
established for the occasion, seeing the springs go 
dry, refused to lend. The contractors refused, 



102 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

very naturally, to reimburse. The masons came 
down off the scaffolding, their trowels still full of 
mortar. The painters stopped in the midst of a 
fillet. The failures of private individuals and of 
corporations went off like a series of connected 
mines. A panic set in. It was in vain that Signor 
Crispi, to avert the crisis, obliged the National 
Bank to lend to the threatened institutions the 
sum of 50,000,000 [$10,000,000]. The crash 
could not be postponed. The loan societies went 
into liquidation. In return for the money they 
had scattered abroad they recovered only houses, 
most of them still unfinished, and the others not 
easy to let because a whole army of employees, 
contractors, and workmen had left the city. But 
the societies, in turn, were largely debtors to the 
National Bank. They made over their assets to 
their principal creditor, which in this way became 
and remains the owner of a very large part of the 
new quarters. This is the entire story." 

" It is simple, so far as ordinary speculators are 
concerned. But how was it that great personages, 
who had immense fortunes, were also ruined? " 

" You refer to the Roman princes. We do not 
need to mention names — everyone knows who 
they are. Indeed, it was a most extraordinary 
thing, and the more so because the Roman patri- 
ciate, and especially the Neri, lavish no money in 
receptions, live simply, and, if they have no debts 
of ancient date inherited with the property, are 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 103 

examples of those well-preserved fortunes, in no 
way impaired, which appear to be secure from any 
imprudence. Unfortunately, here the imprudence 
was enormous, inconceivable. The person of 
whom we both are thinking had a fortune espe- 
cially in land. If he had been contented with sell- 
ing this land, he would have grown richer. But he 
chose to play the part of a loan society himself. 
He borrowed to lend to contractors, and without 
even taking mortgages. Not being paid, he re- 
newed his notes, and allowed interest to accumu- 
late. After a few years, the few millions that 
he had borrowed at first became 30,000,000 
[$6,000,000], and the general disaster surprised 
him with this enormous debt, his debtors insolvent, 
without guarantee, and with mortgaged lands de- 
preciated by the crisis. " 

" And how was it about the Pope? Is it true 
that the Holy See invested funds and lost them in 
this affair? " 

" Yes, and no. The thing has been exag- 
gerated, and especially it has been misunder- 
stood. I believe I know it thoroughly. You must 
understand that a Roman prelate, Monsignor 
Folchi, administered the finances of the Holy See 
with a committee of three cardinals, the latter 
having only an advisory power. By degrees he 
abstained from conferring with this committee; 
and, knowing the activity of Leo XIII. , and the 
pleasure which he took in doing everything him- 



104 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DA Y. 

self as far as possible, Monsignor Folchi limited 
himself to taking the advice of the Pope, when he 
felt the need of consulting with anyone. Now, at 
the time when Rome gave itself up to the specula- 
tions we have been speaking of, and sought loans 
from every quarter, it was represented by differ- 
ent persons to the Holy Father that, instead of 
placing his savings in England, he would do bet- 
ter and be more patriotic, he would render a great 
service to the Romans, in buying shares in some 
of these loan associations. Their stock was at 
this time perfectly good. Leo XIII. followed this 
advice. Later, also, when the nobles, engaged in 
buying land and building, asked him for loans, the 
Pope — following the old and very natural tradi- 
tion of the Roman pontiffs, to aid the princely 
houses — granted them, first taking mortgages, 
but after a time relaxing these necessary precau- 
tions. Monsignor Folchi — and this is the serious 
error that is laid to his charge — consented to ac- 
cept as security the stock of these very companies 
which, a few months later, became either partly or 
wholly worthless. 

" These acts of generosity coupled with impru- 
dence caused very serious embarrassment to the 
Holy See. It was said that the loss amounted to 
20,000,000 [$4,000,000]. This might have been 
so, had it been necessary to< realize at once upon the 
assets of the debtors. But a slow liquidation will 
give results much less disastrous. However, you 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 105 

will not be surprised to learn that the committee 
of cardinals has been re-established, and has now 
deliberative authority." 

The commendatore had maintained the conver- 
sation in an easy tone, with a sort of dilettantism, 
betraying a certain pleasure, as I thought, in 
talking over former times and the persons who had 
played a part in them. When he had reached this 
point a different expression came into his face; a 
little spark shone in his eyes, as he looked at me, 
and he said: 

" Now go and see for yourself. But do not be 
unjust. Remember that, in the beginning, at 
least, of this unfinished enterprise, there was an 
enthusiasm, a desire to embellish, an illusion, 
possibly, as to the future greatness of Rome, which 
may serve as excuse for more faults than one; and 
that, besides, we Romans have not a monopoly 
of these disasters." 

Accordingly I went to see; and I confess that 
I had been very much prejudiced against the new 
quarters by many of my friends who had already 
visited there. My first expedition took me, with 
many intentional aberrations, from the Pincio to 
the Railway Station, thence to Santa Maria 
Maggiore, to S. John Lateran, and beyond the 
walls. The following are, briefly, my impressions: 

This side of the Porta Pinciana, a great many 
houses have been built on the grounds of the old 
Villa Ludovici, whose Casino, adorned with 



106 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Guercino's fresco, has been preserved. Prince 
Buoncompagni has built himself a new palace 
here, surrounded with gardens, much less in 
extent than the others, but still very beauti- 
ful. Everywhere in this neighbourhood the 
broad, regular streets lack those graceful vis- 
ions of palms and oaks which delight the 
eye as one ascends the old Roman hills. These 
streets are bordered with large buildings, gener- 
ally apartment houses, square, of a new whiteness, 
or, more frequently, painted in pale yellow. Via 
Sardegna, via Ludovici, via Buoncompagni — the 
style is the same. It seems as if the same archi- 
tect, haunted by models of the Renaissance, had 
designed them all. And the aspect is that of a 
city of yesterday, without monuments, — for the 
seven hundred feet of facade of the Ministry of 
Finance does not constitute a monument, — which 
might be anywhere in Europe, or in America, or 
upon the grounds of a Universal Exposition, no 
matter where. Certain persons declare themselves 
disgusted at this. They have a power of indigna- 
tion which I do not possess. All these buildings 
may be more or less suitably planned. How 
does this concern us? We do not live in them. 
They are out of keeping with the old quarters. 
Were not those old quarters once new themselves, 
and themselves out of keeping with earlier build- 
ings? It seems to me that unless one has per- 
petually present the idea of Trajan's Column or 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 107 

the Pantheon (which is not Agrippa's!) one may 
see without displeasure these streets full of air and 
light, if not full of the past. If the architec- 
ture lacks a little originality, the sloping ground 
breaks up monotony. This brings a glimpse of 
the sky between one cornice and the next, throws 
out the angles, and piles the house-tops one above 
another; the good taste of the outlines and of the 
proportions is everywhere noticeable, and the 
glowing whiteness of the facades has a charming 
effect against the blue sky. Moreover, very few 
of the houses are closed here; and there are many 
open shops. We are in a good part of the new 
quarters. 

From the via Venti-Settembre, opposite the 
Ministry of Finance, I catch a first distant glimpse 
of an unfinished building lamentable to> see, 
desolate-looking, with rough walls blackened 
at the summit. In the via Principe Umberto, 
which is a very long street parallel to the railway, 
there are many houses without window-frames, or 
with the sashes, and all the glass broken out ; two 
or three are barricaded within; across each bay 
are planks crossed and nailed. I make inquiry. 
" You may suppose, signor, that so many unoccu- 
pied apartments tempt people who have none at 
all. Some poor fellow opens a door, inspects 
the house, finds it to his taste. He brings his 
family. They set up housekeeping. Nobody is 
on the watch. The neighbours are indulgent. 



108 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Presently a government official happens to pass. 
'Oho! a floor is let! We must have the taxes 
paid! ' A tax bill is sent promptly to the owner, 
which in two- cases out of four means to the 
National Bank. There is much surprise at these 
unknown tenants; the matter is investigated; 
the carabineers do their duty; after which the 
windows and doors are all nailed up. This is the 
explanation of the boards at door and window." 

As we go on in the direction of S. John Lateran, 
the blocks of houses are large and imposing as 
ever, but the population is poorer and more 
crowded; and evident signs reveal hasty and cheap 
building. On the Piazza Vittorio-Emanuele, a 
row of enormous columns in imitation of marble, 
making a portico and supporting five or six 
stories, show the simple brickwork of which they 
are made. Here and there the stucco has fallen 
off; bands of iron surround the top of the columns; 
it is decoration in ruins. And the same spectacle 
is on all sides. The same Renaissance palace, more 
simple but not less vast, now occupied, now vacant, 
pursues us to the very extremity of the city, to 
the Basilica omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiariim mater 
et caput. There stands the same palace, isolated in 
the midst of unsold or empty ground. A crowd 
of tenants people the rooms. Rags are hung out 
to dry from all the windows, and these garlands 
of poverty flutter in the breeze. 

Happily, from the steps of S. John, there is also 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 109 

in sight the Roman Campagna. It was, espe- 
cially one morning when I strayed thither, of a 
harmony of light that no words can render. There 
were no trees, no objects to mark the foreground 
or the middle distance; there were only the beau- 
tiful outlines of the plain itself, rising in low hil- 
locks, of a green which became light yellow as it 
was more remote, and finally melted into the azure 
tints of the mountains on the horizon, which were 
crowned with a fringe of dazzling snow. Above, 
a sky everywhere very pure, silvery at first behind 
the snows, then of a faint blue which seemed to 
glitter with white specks, and very different from 
that strong colour that the popular imagination 
lends to the Italian sky. 

I remained so long on the platform above the 
steps of S. John's, that I caught a malady from 
which I have not yet recovered. It was not a 
Roman fever; it was a love of the Roman 
Campagna, which strangers too rarely visit. It 
came to me only by degrees. First it led me to 
visit the suburbs just outside the gates, and gave 
me opportunity to complete the investigation I 
had been making within. For, if you wish to un- 
derstand the full extent of the city's disaster, there 
is something more to be seen than the quarter I 
have described and the prati di Castello, abound- 
ing in even larger buildings and more lamen- 
table wrecks. Go out by the Porta Salaria and 
follow the road for a few hundred feet. Then you 



HO THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

may judge what was this madness of speculation: 
in every direction abandoned tenement-houses, 
some just above the ground, others built up one 
story, or two, or three. Staircases go up in the 
air in half-demolished turrets; the rain falls di- 
rectly in upon ceilings, crumbles the plaster, runs 
in yellow and black streaks down the walls. The 
streets of this dead city have only names and grass. 
There is not a trace of a roadway. Sometimes a 
ground floor is occupied by a poor family; the rest 
of the house decays slowly, and it is not even 
worth while to keep a notice on it, " To be let/' 
for there is no possibility of any tenant appearing. 
I enter a porch at least fifteen feet high, in front 
of which three boys are playing at morra. This is a 
blacksmith's shop. Some neighbour, embarrassed 
by his cart, has lodged it in the back of this shop, 
the shafts in air. Proceeding further, I find a 
charming little dwelling house (which, for a rarity, 
is let), built on the edge of the immense Agro, and 
observe the following details, showing the pro- 
digious force of illusion at certain moments: the 
passageway into the house is painted in fresco, the 
walls are covered with landscapes and chubby 
cupids, a lion of carved stone on a base at the foot 
of the stairs looks at the poor little housekeeper 
of one of the tenants who has entered just before 
me and goes up, a bundle of linen under her arm. 
This house is let to tenants of the very poorest 
class. 



ROMAN HOUSES. AND THE CAMPAGNA. Ill 

Will all this ever recover itself? Will the branch 
of green laurel ever adorn the summit of com- 
pleted buildings here? Perhaps, with time, in cer- 
tain other quarters; but never here. To occupy all 
the empty buildings in Rome would demand noth- 
ing less than the army of fifty thousand labourers, 
contractors, mechanics, and speculators whom the 
crash put to flight, and whom nothing has as yet 
recalled. 

But it is not ruins only, ancient or modern, that 
one meets in going about in the neighbourhood of 
Rome. In my earliest walks, without getting far 
away from the city, I found two other things 
worthy of attention: the new fortifications, and 
the carts which bring in wine from the vineyards 
of the Castelli Romani. 

The carters are a noblesse, for their arms were 
designed by Rafaelle, I mean their cart and their 
saffietta. 

The cart is long and narrow, well-shaped. This 
is bought, ready-made. But the sofRetto must be 
found. Every self-respecting carter must go into 
the woods, often into the thickets of San Spirito, 
which seem to be in a sense common property, — 
being the desert itself, and a perfect specimen of 
neglect, — and there search high and low, until he 
finds a tree of hard wood, having five or six 
branches starting from the same point, a tree 
shaped like a hand. When this excellent piece of 
timber is discovered, the carter cuts it down; the 



112 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

next thing is to hew the lower end into a point; 
after which he sticks it firmly into the left side of 
his cart, in front of the wheel. 

Then, there must be the aid of a specialist, who 
stretches over the five extended fingers a hood of 
white material on movable hoops, adorned with 
festoons of wool, blue, red, green, yellow, accord- 
ing to taste, and multicoloured tufts and fringes. 
Thus the driver is sheltered, both from noonday 
sun and from the heavy dews of morning. But 
the equipage is not yet complete; oh, no! there are 
yet two things of great importance. What would 
the Roman carter be, I ask you, without his 
twenty-four little bells, selected one by one, com- 
bined to give fine fourths and thirds, and hung 
in a semicircle around the sofhetto? How could 
he sleep, or how traverse the road, without music? 
Would the Roman people recognize their friend 
and servant, him whom the centuries have accus- 
tomed to identify his occupation with the sound 
of bells? Twenty-four bells, then, there must be; 
not one less. And the last thing is to hang, under 
the bar of the axle-trees, a small, empty cask, the 
bigoncio, whose swaying back and forth will be in 
harmony with the music overhead. The cask is 
needed in case one of the barrels, lying in a line 
along the cart, should leak on the way. But 
generally it hangs, useless, knocking from side to 
side with a dull sound, adding its share to the bass. 
Nor is the cask chosen by accident; these artis- 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA, 1 13 

tic carters know well the trouble it is to get 
a cask ben accordato! 

Pure poetry, you see. Could there be a city 
official who would persecute it? Such, alas! there 
has been. The carters have an enemy, or, rather, 
their chime of bells has one. His name might 
perhaps be found, if careful search were made, on 
the lists of the Senate. This man, hostile to old 
customs, was, some years ago, a police deputy. 
Did he live in a street traversed by the wine-carri- 
ers? He absolutely prohibited the campanelle, 
under pretext that they made a noise! You may 
imagine the excitement in the corporation. It 
was equal to breaking it up. The carriers held a 
meeting. They brought all their resources to 
bear. Some men of high position and courage un- 
dertook the defence of the soflietto, and brought 
the matter before the municipal council of Rome. 
First, the cruel deputy would hear nothing. 
Then, accepting good»advice, he granted eighteen 
little bells. 

This was very little. It was, in fact, too little. 
Accordingly the carters, diplomatic after their 
fashion, in the Roman way, which is made up of 
patience and a feeling of the fragility of things, 
added, from time to time, qne illegal bell to their 
chimes. Some have nineteen; some have twenty. 
Do not speak of it, I beg you, to your Italian 
friends, but I think that, in one case, I counted 
twenty-four! 



H4 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

The fortifications inspire interest of another 
kind, and most respectful. I have always kept at 
a distance from them, having no permission, and 
seeking none, to make any close inspection. I 
therefore know only what any person may see and 
hear. 

Now, it is enough to go outside the streets of 
the city to become aware that Rome, at this day, 
is an intrenched camp. The plan was determined 
on in the very first years of the Italian occupation, 
but the works were only begun in 1877. 

The fortifications are of two kinds — on the west, 
a wall; and, entirely surrounding the city, a circle 
of forts and batteries, distant from two and a 
half to four miles from the Piazza Colonna. 
The mere inspection of a map explains this scheme 
of defence. Rome is, in fact, more exposed on 
the west, the side toward the sea. Not only be- 
cause a landing of troops might be made, but on 
account of the nature of the ground — uneven, 
wooded, impossible to be commanded by batteries. 
The six forts on the right of the Tiber (Trionfale, 
Casal Braschi, Boccea, Aurelia antica, Bravetta, 
Portuense) are, therefore, to be supported in the 
rear by a fortification, as yet incomplete, which 
begins on the north, near Monte Mario, surrounds, 
at a little distance out, the Vatican and the Tras- 
tevere, and comes out at the river just below the 
city. Some idea of the work can be obtained by 
walking over Monte Mario. I have greatly ad- 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 1 15 

mired the depth of the moat and the beautiful 
travertine of its two sides. 

On the left bank, the open and more even 
ground gives every opportunity for a cross-fire of 
artillery. The Italian engineers, employing for 
the most part convict labor, have built here eight 
forts about a mile apart ; three supplementary bat- 
teries, on the via Nomentana, on the northeast; 
and two on the southeast, commanding the via 
Appia and the via Tuscolana. All this, it ap- 
pears, is in the latest military style — casemates 
everywhere, large enough to shelter at each point 
two battalions, telegraph, telephone, wells, store- 
houses of provisions. When the communications 
are entirely completed — which, doubtless, will 
soon be the case — Rome will have a complete and 
formidable system of fortifications. 

These walks in the new quarters, then in the 
suburbs, then further out, in the wake of the Ro- 
man carters, have led me to love the Campagna di 
Roma more and more, to study the question of 
the Agro, and to become enthusiastic about it. 

For a question of the Agro there is, at once one 
of the most ancient and one of the most urgently 
modern questions which can concern a Roman, 
and interest a foreigner. 

I ought at first to say what the Agro romano is. 
I did not really know, myself, and perhaps some 
other people are as ignorant on this point of geog- 
raphy as I was. In the narrowest and most exact 



Il6 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

definition of the word it is that wide, high plateau, 
averaging from a hundred to a hundred and thirty 
feet above the level of the sea, which surrounds 
the city, describing a sort of triangle. The long- 
est side, about fifty-six miles, extends along the 
Mediterranean, from Santa Severa on the north, 
to Astura, near Anzio. The second side of the 
triangle extends from Santa Severa to the foot of 
the Apennines and the river Anio. The third goes 
to the sea again, leaving the Alban Hills at the 
left. Thus outlined, this territory nearly corre- 
sponds to that of the Roman commune, the largest 
in all Italy, containing 842 square miles. In 
the midst of this immense and almost uninhabited 
territory, without the smallest rival city near her, 
lies Rome — " Alone like a lion," say the Italians. 1 
Nothing is more rash than to venture statistics 
as to the Agro. Men and animals are migratory 
here. However, the agricultural societies assert 
that the Agro supports about 6000 oxen and bulls, 
18,000 cows, 7000 horses and mares, 12,000 goats, 
and 320,000 sheep. The cattle remain all the year 
round on the Campagna, but in the spring the 
sheep go up to the high mountain pasturages, 
returning in the autumn. They constitute the 
principal wealth of the domains, and form flocks 
generally of several thousand head. Their fresh 

1 See Monografia delta citta di Roma e delta Campagna romana, 
published by the Department of Agriculture, Vol. I. A study of the 
topographical and physical conditions of Rome and the Campagna. 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 1 17 

cheese, the vicotta, is a Roman dainty; their hard 
cheese, formaggio pecorino, recalls the absent home 
to sailors of both services. 

The personnel in charge of the flocks and herds 
is not large. But it is extremely interesting, from 
its manners and customs, and from its traditional 
hierarchy. You have perhaps met in the remoter 
quarters of the city, or even at a very early 
hour, in the Corso, a sturdy horseman, sunburned, 
wearing a big, soft hat, his shoulders covered with 
a black cloak lined with green, very ^mple fall- 
ing to his ankle* carrying in his hand an iron-shod 
wooden lance. This is the buttero of the Cam- 
pagna, the guardian of horses or cows, the wan- 
derer who passes his life in pursuit of stray 
animals, superintends their changes of pasture and 
the use made of their milk. He is as good a 
rider as Buffalo Bill's cowboys, with whom he con- 
tended at Rome in a memorable tourney, when the 
colonel himself, admiring his rivals, pronounced 
their eulogy in words like these: " Not quite so 
agile, equally solid, the same courage, a thorough 
knowledge of their business, with intervals of terri- 
ble sprees; your Roman butteri are cowboys," All 
these men have horses in plenty at their disposal. 
They have their titles, probably of more ancient 
date than those of count or baron. The chief 
herdsman is the massaro; the chief shepherd, the 
vergaro. They have under their orders about the 
same number of men on all the great domains. 



Ii8 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Thus, for the service of a masseria of four thou- 
sand sheep, from twenty-six to thirty men are re- 
quired. The minarente, in charge of the buffaloes, 
and his subordinate, the vece> have each twenty 
herdsmen. 

The buffaloes of the Campagna! It has long 
been one of my dreams to see these animals close 
by, not from the railway, or as they pass, yoked 
and dull, in a Roman street, dragging a load too 
heavy for oxen, but to see them at liberty in the 
pastures of the Agro. This dream I have at last 
realized, and later I will explain how. The mat- 
ter constantly grows more difficult. They have 
much decreased in number on the Roman Cam- 
pagna. Twenty years ago there were five or six 
thousand, and it is said that now there are not 
more than two thousand. And yet these strange 
animals render service that cannot be obtained 
from their kindred races. I speak not only of the 
white buffalo cheese, nova di bvifale, which is 
greatly valued, nor of their hauling of stone — it 
was with buffalo teams that the colossal foun- 
dation-stones of the Victor Emanuel monument 
were brought to Rome — but they have another 
specialty, which makes them very useful in a region 
of marshy ground. They go down into the muddy 
swamps of the Pontine Marshes and browse the 
water-plants that the slow current suffers to 
become abundant ; then, when all the herd are col- 
lected in the narrow ditches, the keepers, on horse- 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 119 

back, riding* along above, prick the rear animals, 
scare the others, and so they all are driven, fright- 
ened and galloping, down to the sea, destroying, 
as they go, whatever remains of the parasitic 
plants. 

It is not the case, as has often been supposed, 
that the Roman Campagna is entirely given up 
to pasture land. Everywhere it is more or less 
cultivated. In each one of these tenute (holdings), 
many of which contain from twelve hundred to five 
thousand acres, 1 a small section, recognized as 
suitable for agriculture, is sown with corn or oats. 
The ground is not enriched. Besides the thickets, 
the marshes, and the permanent pasturages, there 
are pasture lands subjected to the rotazione agraria. 
In some cases these are ploughed up every four 
years; they give their harvest and then lie fallow: 
in others their productive capacity is used to the 
very utmost; they are sown twice, three times, four 
times, then left to rest for an equal period. Which- 
ever way, nature gets her rights. The grass grows 
again, and with it the poetry of the fields in the 
spring. Nowhere so abundantly as here will you 
find the asphodel, narcissus, centaurea, thistles of 
many kinds, and, in the low ground, orchids, the 
ranunculus, flowering rushes, and the yellow iris. 

1 According to the extremely interesting and learned study recently 
published by Signor Valenti in the Giornale degli Economisti of Febru- 
ary and March, 1893, the Campagna contains 388 farms, belonging 
to 200 owners only ; 312 tenute are of less than 250 acres ; the largest 
territory in one ownership is 18,300 acres. 



120 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Besides shepherds, then, there must be farm 
labourers and harvesters. The Agro has them 
not, having no villages. They are summoned, 
when needed, and come in bands from the Sabine 
Mountains, from the Abruzzi, from Romagna, un- 
der the charge of a leader, the caporale, who has 
engaged them, and on his part negotiates with the 
steward of the seignorial domain. They come to 
plough and break up the ground and to sow it, 
and are paid a lira, or one and a half (twenty cents 
or thirty) a day, finding their own food; they are 
very badly lodged, and, after a month, they go. 
Another band of these vagabond labourers arrives 
for the harvest, in June. But this is summer, the 
dangerous season. Then must be reaped and 
stored the harvest of many hundreds of acres, as 
rapidly as possible, not to remain too long in con- 
tact with the overheated soil. The men work in 
squads of three reapers and a binder. They work 
eleven days, and not one day over. If the harvest 
is not all in, a new set finishes it. They receive 
twenty-five lire (five dollars) for the four, and for 
the whole eleven days; besides this, about two 
pounds of bread, daily, a pint and three-quarters 
(a litre) of wine, cheese, and some very poor kinds 
of meat. After the eleventh day every man is 
gone, and unless it happens that other squads, re- 
quired to finish the harvest, prolong for a week or 
two the intense life of this part of the Agro, the 
tenuta remains almost deserted. The sheep and 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 121 

their shepherds have gone up to the high pas- 
turages of the Sabina. There remain only the 
herdsmen, very few in number, all men of great 
physical endurance, and doubtless more or less 
acclimated. And the Campagna — burned, torrid, 
buzzing with the flight of the countless insects 
that tease the cattle — remains empty and deso- 
late until the end of August, protected against the 
return of men by its formidable and ancient mis- 
tress and queen, the fever. 

Volumes have been written in Italy upon this 
question of malaria. It is the object of incessant 
study on the part of medical celebrities and of dis- 
cussions perpetually renewed. It offers a thou- 
sand points of controversy. It comes up, not 
only as to< the Roman Campagna, but also as to 
a great number of Italian localities, some of which 
are famous. According to a health map of Italy, 
published by the central bureau of the Senate, 6 
provinces only, out of 69, are completely exempt 
from this evil; or, to give figures more definite and 
exact, 2677 towns out of 8257. 1 

So far as the city of Rome is concerned, the in- 
salubriousness of the air, in the time of extreme 
heat, has certainly been exaggerated. Even in 
the months of July, August, and September, cases 
of fever among the inhabitants are extremely rare. 
The number becomes larger, and gives support to 

1 See the interesting study of a young Italian professor, Signor 
Nitti, la Legislation sociale en Italic y Revue d'economie politique, 1892. 



122 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

the popular prejudice on this subject, only when 
those patients are included who have contracted 
fever elsewhere, and are brought into the Hospital 
of San Spirito for treatment. 1 

This is now settled, and it is well that it is so. 
Unfortunately the bad name of the Agro is not 
undeserved; the whole Campagna, however, is 
not equally unwholesome. Its character in this re- 
spect varies in different years and in different lo- 
calities. The low ground near the sea, abounding 
in swamps, is most dangerous. The sea itself, along 
the shore, presents equal danger, and the saying is 
that the man who sleeps on a boat anchored within 
half a mile of land, will wake with a malarial at- 
tack. However, the inland region as far as the 
foot of the mountains is also more or less threat- 
ened in its whole extent, and late statistics give 
this alarming average: in the Campagna on the 
right of the Tiber, twenty-three cases anually to 
the hundred inhabitants; and on the left, thirty- 
three. 1 Here we have, not the sole obstacle, but 
one of the most serious hindrances to cultivation, 
the cause of that depopulation of the Agro which 
has been a constant anxiety to all the successive 
governments of Rome. 

For how long a time has this situation existed? 

1 See Monografia delta Citta di Roma e della Campagna romana. 
Article by Signor Guido Baccelli. Vol. I., la Malaria di Roma. 

2 Relazione monograjica ddla zona soggetta alle legge sulla bonifica- 
zione agraria Roma, lip. nazionale di Bertera, 1892. 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 123 

This question I have put again and again to many 
competent persons, and I have been much pleased 
at the Latin erudition they have exhibited. In a 
city street or walking over the fields, without 
book or notes, they quote me, from memory, au- 
thors of every date. But they do not agree with 
one another: " Signor," says one, with that vi- 
vacity of manner which the question of malaria al- 
ways calls forth, " the Agro was not formerly such 
as you see it now. Innumerable villas covered it, 
whose ruins are visible to this day. It was inhab- 
ited. It must have been healthful. Of this, 
writers give us innumerable proofs. Cicero, In 
Verrem, speaks of the admirable fertility of Tus- 
culum, the Alban Hills and Civita-Lavinia. 
Strabo in his Geography, Pliny in his Natural His- 
tory, praise the orchards of Tibur. Livy is en- 
thusiastic in his eulogy of the river banks. All 
the way to Corneto* and Castro, every place has 
its commendation in pages of the classic authors. 
You must understand it is the Barbarians, the 
nazioni boreali, who have caused all this evil." 

On another day I talk with a great landowner 
of the Campagna, — he, also, a classic scholar, — 
who answers me thus: " The Barbarians? Doubt- 
less they ravaged the Agro. But they destroyed 
only what there was to destroy. The ruins which 
remain to us — and they are not numerous — are 
those of palaces, with mosaic pavements and fres- 
coed walls. Where are the villages and farm 



124 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

houses? We find no trace of them. The Cam- 
pagna has never been inhabited like the rest of 
Italy. The owners came for three months in the 
early season; patricians and freedmen, they all went 
away later; nobody remained but slaves. There 
was always fever. It cannot be doubted. Why 
else these many votive inscriptions: i To the God- 
dess Fever/ ' To the Sacred Fever/ ' To the 
Great Fever ' (febri divce, febri sanctce, febri 
magnc?)? And how frequent the allusions to 
pestilences desolating the Agrol These were, no 
doubt, all malarial diseases, aggravated by occa- 
sional extremes of heat. Nothing has changed; 
the steady line of tradition proves this." 

It is plain to see that the first of these two men 
was a partisan of agrarian reforms, and the second 
was not. Their reference to classic authors was 
in the service of present interests. And I re- 
turned to the present, following their example. 

Nor is it enough that malarial patients be care- 
fully nursed. Medical science concerns itself with 
them. It experiments with all sorts of remedies. 
Besides quinine, the most efficient of all, yet ac- 
cepted reluctantly, and in certain quarters much 
opposed by popular prejudice, the doctors employ 
arsenic, and recommend a fortifying diet. Ac- 
cording to the rather ironical Tuscan saying: "La 
cura delta malaria sta nella pentola "; and they 
recommend even certain domestic remedies, whose 
efficiency they consider remarkable; this one, for 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 125 

example, whose recipe has a deep flavour: " Take a 
fresh lemon, cut it in thin slices, keeping the rind; 
boil it with three glasses of water in an earthen 
saucepan which has never been used for other 
purposes. When it has boiled away one-third, 
strain the liquid, squeezing out the residue, and 
leave it to cool overnight." Science has not, as 
yet, explained why this liquid has need of a whole 
night's rest in order to become of sovereign effi- 
cacy. But so it declares, following the ignorant 
generations who have handed the secret down. 
The most obstinate fevers are often conquered by 
this lemon consomme, which, in the absence of 
other soups, even a very poor Italian can obtain. 1 
But the true remedy lies in the sanitary im- 
provement of the Agro. With all the discussion 
that still goes on as to* the malarial principle and 
the manner of its propagation, there seems to be 
no doubt that it is produced by a damp soil, and 
developed as soon as the heat reaches 68° F. 
Now, the whole Roman Campagna is damp. 
Springs abound. Canevari, the engineer, counted 
ten thousand of them. Usually they have no out- 
let, and they cannot be absorbed by the earth any 
more than can the rainfall; for, under the arable 
soil, which varies in depth, the Agro has its natural 
pavement of ancient lava, impervious to moisture. 
Hence, as many swamps as there are springs, often 

*See Annali di Agricoltura, 1884, second report Sulla prcserva- 
zio:ie dell uomo nei paesi di malaria t by Professor Tommaso Crudeli. 



126 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

invisible; and the great marshes of Ostia and Mac- 
carese, of many thousand acres in extent, whose 
exhalations are carried on the sea-breezes as far 
as the foot of the mountains. 1 

To improve the condition of the Agrol It is 
not a matter of yesterday, this proposition of dry- 
ing up the marshes, draining the low ground, colo- 
nizing the great plateau, subjecting to thorough 
cultivation this soil (which becomes less dangerous 
to the labourer, it is said, when ploughed up every 
year), planting tall-growing trees, which drink up 
the moisture with their roots and let the wind 
pass under their branches — the elm, the pine, the 
laurel, the eucalyptus. All through the centuries 
this has been the plan. And it seems that all these 
means have been employed, one after another, with 
the same lack of success. The Romans, the Papal 
Government, the French during their occupation, 
the Italians since they have taken possession of 
Rome, have striven in turn against this scourge. 
There were not less than seventy-five statutes on 
this question before those of 1878 and 1883, which 
are at present in force. 

Many of these are curious. A first thing to be 
observed is that the Popes very early perceived 
and declared that the latifundia — the fact that 

1 Other theories, very different, have been set forth, notably one by 
Signor Tommaso Crudeli. I accept, without feeling qualified to ap- 
prove or disprove, the explanation which guided the authors of the 
laws of 1878 and 1883. 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 127 

such extensive tracts are in single ownerships — 
formed one of the great obstacles to improvement, 
while, at the same time, they always refused, 
notwithstanding the complaints of the people and 
the selfishness and inertia of the barons, to touch 
any property rights and make an agrarian law. 
As Pius VII. well said, a law of division " would 
be not only an act of illegality and of great 
injustice, but it would be more injurious than the 
continued toleration of ownerships too extensive 
and too few in number." The Popes were limited, 
therefore, to indirect methods. Sixtus IV., re- 
newing earlier decrees, permitted to all and singu- 
lar to cultivate a third of any waste land, to 
whomsoever it belonged, monastery, chapter, 
noble, public or private owner, on the sole condi- 
tion of notifying the owner and paying a royalty. 
The Campagna recovered life, and during many 
years great tracts were under cultivation. But 
almost immediately upon the Pontiff's death the 
proprietors began to relieve themselves from this 
temporary expropriation. They forbade the trans- 
port of grain harvested upon the land, and bought 
it themselves at a price far below its value. Julius 
II. threatened to excommunicate them. Clement 
VIII. maintained the edict of Sixtus, and fixed 
the amount of the royalties to be paid to the 
owners. 

Pius VI., who drained part of the Pontine 
marshes, undertook a new survey of the Agro. 



128 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Pius VII., changing the method, laid a special tax 
on all arable land situated within a radius of a mile 
from Rome that should be left fallow, and gave 
a bonus to every owner who, in the same zone, 
should have planted his ground or destined it to 
regular cultivation. 1 

Neither these measures, nor any other efforts 
made, having brought a lasting transformation, 
Pius IX. made an effort to induce the owners to 
replant the Agro with trees. He deposited ten 
thousand crowns 2 for the use of his Department* 
of Agriculture. Every owner or farmer should re- 
ceive twenty crowns for every hundred pine trees 
set out, fifteen crowns for every hundred olive, 
lemon, or orange trees, and ten crowns for every 
hundred elms or chestnuts. As a result of this 
law, more than a million trees were set out. 

But what are a million trees in the vast Cam- 
pagna? The same Pope took another initiative, 
truly bold and most interesting. It was his de- 
sire to enfranchise the Agro from the intolerable 
liabilities that lay upon it. A multitude of rights, 
whose origin it was usually impossible to explain 
— rights of way, of watering, of gleanage, and of 
pasturage in the fields and woods — restricted, in 
the interest of the community, the right of the 
owner, and barred the way to all progress. 

For instance, we read, in very learned reports, 

1 See Papes et pay sans, by G. Ardent, Paris, Gaunu, 1891. 

2 A crown (/cu) is about 60 cents. 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 129 

addressed to a congregation of cardinals/ that 
three-fifths of the territory of Nepi is subject to a 
right of pasturage; that at Viterbo, out of twenty 
thousand rubbia of ground, twelve thousand are 
thus burdened. The communes have a right to 
the grass. They divide into three parts these im- 
mense pasturages, which nominally belong to the 
private owners. One is occupied by the working 
cattle; the second produces hay, which is sold at 
auction for the benefit of the commune; in the 
third anyone may pasture his herds or flocks on 
payment of rent — to the commune, of course! 
The unfortunate owner gets what return he can 
from pieces of ground under cultivation, and these 
even he cannot increase, lest it should be to the 
detriment of the community. Accordingly pontif- 
ical edicts, at first made for special cases, but later 
changed into a general law, permitted the owners 
to free themselves by payment?, either in money 
or in kind, from the burdens of pasturage. And, 
as a result of this law, the territory of the Agro 
was almost liberated. 

No sooner had the Italian Government taken 
possession of Rome, than it was obliged to deal 
with the same question. Public opinion demanded 
this. Many partisans of the new order asserted, 

1 1 papi e V agricoltura nei domini della 5. Sede, by Signor Milella ; 
Roma, Pallotta, 1880. The Riflessioni sulV agro romano, at the end 
of the volume, are a remarkable dissertation, written with much 
ability and Roman spirit. 



130 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

in speech and writing, — but, as I believe, unjustly, 
— that the Popes had done almost nothing for the 
Campagna. From the new regime was expected 
that which the old had not supplied. A commis- 
sion was appointed as early as 1870 to prepare a 
general scheme for the improvement of the Agro 
romano. Around it a crowd of interests and pas- 
sions were at work. Each man proposed his 
particular panacea. The most extraordinary sug- 
gestions were offered — as, for instance, that the 
creation of four large villages, of a thousand in- 
habitants each, should be decreed; or that a negro 
population should be colonized to cultivate the 
Campagna. The commission calmly pursued its 
work, under the direction of a man of great worth, 
Signor Ubaldino Peruzzi, an ex-syndic of Flor- 
ence; and the results from this prolonged investi- 
gation, discussed and modified in the Chambers, 
became finally two laws — those of December 11, 
1878, and of July 8, 1883. 

The first of these laws is in relation to the boni- 
Ocamento idraalico. It decreed first, at the ex- 
pense of the state, great works of drainage of the 
marshes of Ostia and Maccarese, of the Isola 
Sacra, near Ostia, the valley of the Almo, and the 
Lago de' Tartari, on the road to Tivoli. It then 
committed to eighty-nine obligatory syndicates of 
proprietors — consorzi — the duty of laying out a 
system of water channels, of surrounding all the 
cultivated land with ditches, and of providing for 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 131 

the escape of all stagnant water. Has this law 
been obeyed, and have its results been satisfac- 
tory? We reply in the affirmative. Companies 
have contracted for all the required engineering 
work, and have begun upon it. That the whole 
task is not yet completed, especially at Ostia and 
Maccarese, and that it has swallowed up already 
more than the 5,000,000 [$1,000,000] estimated 
and originally voted, are surprises not uncommon 
when land and water are attacked. The owners, 
on their part, have executed, at least in most re- 
gions, the work required of them under the first 
head — that is to say, canalization. They have 
still to divide and drain their fields, and to fill in 
ponds and swamps. But this can all be easily done 
and promptly, if the Government is persistent. 

Can we say the same of the law of July 8, 1883, 
which is far more important, and aims at nothing 
less than a complete transformation of the Agro 
romano? This is a most ambitious design. Within 
six months from the date of the law the owners of 
all lands within a radius of ten kilometres [6J miles] 
from the mile-stone of the Forum — whence its 
popular name, " The Law of the Ten Kilometres " 
— were required to lay before a special commis- 
sion the improvements they proposed to make; 
to declare the extent of land that would hence- 
forth be regularly kept under cultivation, how 
much they would plant in trees and how much in 
vines, what roads and ditches they proposed to 



I3 2 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

make, and a plan of the houses, barns, and stables 
they designed to build. 

On failure to do this, or on failure to execute 
the works agreed upon, the land would be seized 
by the state, first paying an indemnity to the 
owner; and it would then be sold piecemeal at 
auction, the new proprietors being required to 
fulfil the obligations which the former owner had 
neglected. 

The feeling caused by the promulgation of 
this law was great. The severe provisions which 
I have just mentioned affected not less than 
118 domains, in all more than 50,000 acres. 
Their application would involve an expense of 
over 3,000,000 lire [$600,000] by the owners 
of the land — that is to say, averaging, according 
to the estimate of the commission, 144 lire to the 
hectare [$11.25 to the acre] on the right bank of 
the Tiber, and 201 [$15.75] on ^ ie kft- I* was 
said, also, that these estimates were too low. 

Such a measure could not be welcome. Nor 
was it. At the end of six months two owners had 
positively refused to have anything to say to the 
commission; twenty-five had accepted the terms; 
and the majority had made no reply at all, which 
is extremely Italian. But the administration was 
Italian also; it took its time, and gave time to the 
other side, not brutally going to the extent per- 
mitted by the law; and a long struggle began be- 
tween the authorities, wishing to reform abuses, 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 133 

and the persons interested, striving by all methods 
to maintain the position unchanged. 

I hasten to come to the present situation. Since 
1883 how much has been gained? The following 
is the sum of the results: at the end of 1891 one 
landowner had fully obeyed the law of the bonefica, 
Cavaliere Bertone, a Piedmontese, who had bought 
the Campanelle, a domain of 247 acres, almost 
entirely outside of the ten-kilometre belt, and, 
nevertheless, caused important works to be ex- 
ecuted there. Next on the list are ten tenute, rep- 
resenting 4446 acres, which are very nearly in the 
required condition: Caffarella and Capo di Bove, 
the property of Prince Torlonia; Tor di Quinto, 
that of Prince Borghese; Tor Sapienza, that of 
Prince Lancelotti; Tre Fontane, belonging to the 
Trappist Fathers; Tor Marancio, to Conte di 
Merode; Quadrato*, to the charitable society Pichi 
Lunati; Ponte di Nona, to Cavaliere Bertone; 
Marranella, to Signor Giuseppe Anconi; Valca 
and Valchetta, to the brothers Piacentini; and 
Torre nuova, to Prince Don Paolo Borghese. 

In sixteen other domains the administration 
mentions partial improvements, and in twenty 
others insignificant ones. Finally, sixty-seven do- 
mains, comprising 27,170 acres, had not as yet felt 
the slightest effect from the law of 1883. 1 

And there seems to have been no further change 
since these documents, published in the year 
1892. I made inquiry, and learned only this fact, 

1 Agro ro?nano, Relazione monograjica, etc. 



134 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

that the purchaser of one of the two domains 
which had been, confiscated in virtue of the law, 
had renounced his purchase and restored the land 
to the state, which had sold it to him, not being 
able, he said, to carry out the programme of the 
too expensive improvements imposed by the 
specifications. 

To conclude, it had often been asserted by the 
promoters of reform that the use of the pure 
mountain water which is brought to Rome by the 
aqueducts would be of great service in reducing 
the number of malarial cases on the Campagna. 
Most praiseworthy efforts have been made in this 
direction. The commune placed at the disposal 
of proprietors on the left bank of the Tiber 70,633 
cubic feet of the Acqua Marcia. Twenty-two 
miles of pipe were laid, and eleven centres of dis- 
tribution established — near S. Agnese fuori, at Tor 
di Schiavi on the via Prenestina, at the Osteria 
dei Spiriti, on the via Appia nuova, at Capo di 
Bove, etc. Experience demonstrates that, wher- 
ever the Marcian water is used instead of water 
from the wells, the chances of immunity are in- 
creased. Nevertheless, out of the 70,633 cubic 
feet offered to those concerned, there were pur- 
chasers for only 10,600. 

The results, therefore, are not absolutely noth- 
ing, as has been asserted; but they are still very 
small. The laws concerning this improvement of 
the Campagna have not effected the rapid trans- 



ROMAN' HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 135 

formation which was expected. Where, then, is 
the fault? Does it lie with the owners, with the 
farmers, or in the laws themselves? Is there any 
possibility of improving these laws? Or will it 
be enough to continue endeavouring to enforce 
them? And is it not too hasty a judgment by 
which, thus early, we seek to decide upo<n a series 
of measures designed to change things that are 
almost immutable — rural traditions and popular 
prejudices? 

I have put these questions to several persons, 
and I have received the clearest and the most con- 
tradictory replies. In seeking to group them, it 
has seemed to me that these answers can be re- 
duced to three: the reply of the Mercante di Cam- 
pagna, that of the great landowner, and a third, 
more difficult to define, which is the opinion of 
some proprietors, of many men in public life, of 
many socialists whose opinion has a revolution- 
ary tone, and of many peaceable citizens of hum- 
ble station, who see the affairs of the Roman 
Campagna close at hand and have a perfectly clear 
idea of the progress needed, without having the 
leisure or the mental capacity to decide upon the 
means toward it. The following are the three 
forms of opinion which have been expressed to 
me, each one ten times at least. 

The Mercante di Campagna: "The law of 1883 
is an absurd law, signor. Who are the men that 
have imposed it upon us? They are Tuscans, 



136 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Lombards, Piedmontese, and men from Southern 
Italy — persons in no way competent to judge, 
accustomed to see a certain system of agriculture, 
and thinking it the easiest thing in the world to 
make it applicable to the Roman Campagna by 
mere decree. Their regular cultivation is like 
vaccination — everybody must take it. Unfortu- 
nately, they are totally ignorant of the special 
conditions made for us by the climate and by the 
nature of the soil. They wish to plant vineyards? 
But the vine requires assiduous care. For three 
months the Campagna is uninhabitable; and there 
is nothing which our experience has made clearer 
than the fact that, during that time, the grape 
dries up and the vine perishes. They again require 
us to break up the natural soil and sow corn and 
oats. What happens? It is a fact that very often 
the layer of earth is so thin that nothing but grass 
can grow on it; if you break it up, the least shower 
washes it away, the rock is exposed; you get no 
grain, and you lose the grass that you had before. 
Believe me, signor, and do what these men who 
talk so much about the Campagna have never 
done — go and look at it. You will see that it is 
by no means the frightful wilderness that men 
call it; that it is cultivated — not, indeed, as Tus- 
cany and Lombardy are, but just as much as it 
can be. There was something to be done in the 
way of drainage. This has been done. Any fur- 
ther attempt is neither useful nor rational. ,, 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 137 

The Great Landowner: " It is perfectly easy, my 
dear sir, to preach a reform of the Agro, when 
one does not own any part of it. Opinions upon 
agriculture at Rome are part of the political creed. 
All your good radicals, all your politicians who 
have not an olive tree outside the walls, who never 
go upon the Campagna, who know it only by hav- 
ing passed through it on the railway, are decided 
partisans of the bonificamento. For ourselves, who 
own land, it is different; the question is not so 
easy to decide. We get five per cent, from our 
domains, managed as they now are, and as they 
have been for centuries. The proposal is made us 
to substitute grain fields for the grass lands, which 
we now let very profitably. But to break up the 
ground is expensive; the grain sells but poorly; 
and it has been proved at many points, notably in 
the dried-up — the ' improved ' — bed of Lago 
Fucino, that grain exhausts our soil very rapidly. 
It is simply a proposition to us to lose our money. 
There is no ground for enthusiasm here. Let the 
Government relieve us of burdens on the land, 
let them help us, and, sceptical though we are, 
we shall not object to the trying of experiments. 
For there has been exaggeration as to the 
malaria." 

A man who had been talking in this way with 
me, in one of the aristocratic clubhouses of Rome, 
had just come in from a drive on the Campagna. 
He stopped just here, without considering the 



138 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

connection of ideas. " Garcm" he cried, " a glass 
of vermouth and some quinine! A good deal of 
quinine, waiter," he added. 

The Partisan of Reforms: " It is just as well to 
own frankly that the framers of the law of 1883 
committed some mistakes. For example, they did 
not take into account the fact that certain parts 
of the Campagna are not susceptible of cultiva- 
tion. Their ten kilometres mean nothing; and 
the College of Agricultural Engineers has lately 
prepared, and is bringing before the public, a new 
law which changes this irrational belt into a great 
fan, having Rome for the base, and for the two 
sides the via Casilina and the via Ardeatina. Im- 
perfections can all be corrected; but the one thing 
of importance is that we should have a law for the 
improvement of the Agro, and that this law be 
carried out. The Italians are emigrating by 
armies every year, and here we have at our gates 
vacant land where hundreds of thousands might 
be fed. Is this to be endured? Can it be permit- 
ted that the self-interest of a few should be a 
perpetual obstacle to the sanitary improvement 
of the Campagna, to its being brought under cul- 
tivation, to the prosperity of Rome itself — for, 
thus surrounded by fever, Rome must always re- 
main, as now, a little city? And what are the 
arguments which these owners offer? That grain 
is ruinous to the land? No doubt it is, if grain is 
sown indefinitely in a land that is never enriched. 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 139 

That they have not money enough to- meet ex- 
penses like these? That they can only borrow at 
eight and ten per cent.? I admit this. What we 
desire is the creation of a great agricultural society 
which shall be obliged by its statutes to lend 
money at a reasonable rate. All the landowners 
of the Agro will then be in a position to accom- 
plish what the law requires. Then we can say to 
them: ' Obey, or give place to us. Rome can no 
longer tolerate this Campagna, so unworthy of her 
and so dangerous to her population.' The society 
will then buy the land which its owners refuse to 
improve, will divide it up, and will lend money to 
the farmers who come there to live, emigrating 
thither from the interior, instead of going far 
away in search of fortune; and it will permit them 
by annual payments slowly to acquire ownership. 
Towns will spring up in the more healthful por- 
tions, and the men at work by day in the plains 
will return to> sleep on the higher lands. These 
desolate, useless stretches of ground will be no 
longer seen, nor these bands of labourers treated 
like cattle. Visit the Campagna yourself, signor; 
observe with your own eyes this destitution. 
You will then understand why thirty thousand 
petitioners have begged the Chambers to decree 
the bonified; and you will better understand the ex- 
treme importance of the question. For, I assure 
you, men are very much excited on this subject, 
and the proprietors of the Agro, obstinate in their 



140 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

refusal to listen, will incur in the end a terrible 
storm of popular indignation." 

I remember well the contagious enthusiasm 
with which many men talked to me thus, the dark 
eyes glittering with excitement, the prophetic 
tone of the invariable menace at the end. Men of 
the middle class, accountants, employees of the 
princely computisterie, deputies belonging to ad- 
vanced groups in the Chambers, all expressed 
themselves with the same vigour. 

The partisans of the status quo were no less posi- 
tive. I adopted the one idea in which they all 
agreed, which was to go out to see for myself. 
And delicious were the days that I passed upon 
the Agro, east, north, and west of Rome — cap- 
tivated more and more by this strange land, by the 
problems to which it gives rise, and by the dreams 
which haunt it. 

I do not assume to have been a discoverer there. 
I only propose to tell simply what appeared new 
to a stranger; what I observed, heard, or seemed 
able to divine in these varied expeditions. And 
to this end I determined on four, across very dis- 
similar domains, in opposite directions upon the 
Campagna. 

On the North of Rome. 
I leave the city by the Porta del Popolo; a 
friend accompanies me. We follow the old 
Flaminian Way. At once, around us, the coun- 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 141 

try assumes that amplitude of lines and that air 
of desolation which make it so beautiful. There 
are no pretty details, no shady nooks, cascades, or 
even groups of leafy trees — joy of the Tuscan land 
— but a succession of broad spaces, irregular of sur- 
face, green, specked with patches of pozzolana in 
the foreground, growing blue in the distance; girt 
with a belt of mountains whose snows have chang- 
ing tints as the hours go by. The labour of man 
has left hardly a trace here. Like the sparrow- 
hawks flying over it in every direction, the eye 
finds no resting-place. It roams amid accidents 
of scenery that are always the same — a hill, 
abruptly cut away, gnawed at its base by a muddy 
brook, a ruin on the top of a hillock, a stake 
fence many thousand feet long, hemming in a 
flock of sheep; it lingers, astonished at the mo- 
notonous sadness of each separate thing and the 
distinct grandeur of the whole effect. It is an 
altogether new impression, peculiar to the place. 
We cross the Tiber at Ponte Molle, the Milvian 
Bridge. In a field, which is used as a racecourse, 
the old dairy farm of Tor di Ouinto-, a long yellow 
building with red roofs is now a riding school for 
the cavalry. No horsemen are visible. But 
everywhere, in the vigorous aftermath, I see 
daisies, the under side pink, as large as our ox-eye 
daisy of June. And that is so pleasant to see in 
December! In other respects, the season sur- 
prises one. The air is warm, the yellow Tiber 



142 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

winds between grassy banks, and the pines have 
green tufts, on these cliffs at the left, which are 
called Poussin's Rocks. 

We reach the high ground of two domains situ- 
ated on the limit of the ten-kilometre belt, which 
are conceded in perpetual lease to my companion, 
Signor P. The first, Valchetta, belongs to the 
Chapter of S. Peter; the second, Prima Porta, to 
the Chapter of S. John Lateran. A man on 
horseback awaits us and leads the way. We leave 
the highway, taking a little trap which he has 
brought, and, at once, the aspect of the country 
reveals a capable and active farmer. Along the 
road, ascending between two hedges of thorn, 
stretch fields of lucerne, which give five crops be- 
tween May and September, meadows full of tall 
clover, fields prepared for beets, — a new crop in 
the Agro, — then a wood of young pine trees, grow- 
ing finely, at the foot of the rocky plateau on 
which lie the farm buildings. They are much like 
those that we see in France, but the spur of land 
on which they are built divides through the mid- 
dle a narrow valley — the valley where was fought 
the battle of the three hundred Fabii against the 
men of Veii. While I stand, leaning between two 
rosemary trees, and gaze at this famous brook, the 
Cremera, — a tiny stream in the fields upon which 
I look down, which are narrow as two green roads, 
— the old farmer has gathered me a handful of 
roses. He secures it to the apron of the carriage, 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 143 

and then conducts me to the cow-house — a rarity 
on the Campagna — where are lodged, during the 
night, fifty Swiss cows, whose milk is sold in Rome. 
As I enter, I read on a slate hung at the door the 
product of the evening's milking, sixty-seven gal- 
lons; and above the stalls in this admirable build- 
ing, which is worthy of an agricultural school, a 
series of expressive names: Galatina, Invidiosa, 
Sfacciata, Bellabocca, Monachella. The four hun- 
hundred other milch cattle, of Roman race, live 
outdoors, night and day. They are half wild, and 
to milk them the keepers go out upon the Cam- 
pagna in an ox-cart at eleven o'clock at night. 

Through the hilly fields we go across to Prima 
Porta. The soil, everywhere enriched from the 
pasturage of sheep, is covered with thick grass. 
Only on the top of the rolling ground and on 
some steep slopes here and there, I notice bare 
patches where the rock comes to the surface. 
" Here are made attempts at cultivation," Signor 
P. remarks; " the soil, which we had broken up, in 
obedience to- the law, was washed away by the 
rains. You may judge from this if the law is 
everywhere applicable." 

We drove a long time, without meeting anyone, 
over the endless undulations of the pasture- 
ground, which is crowned, here and there, with 
patches of coppice, like mildew on a large scale. 
And as it was somewhat late when we had left the 
city, twilight began to come on. The distant 



144 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Tiber was lustrous in places, and the grain fields 
had a bluish tinge. A flock of sparrow-hawks 
went over, seeking some tree known to them- 
selves only, far away in the distance. With the 
darkness came a certain feeling of depression. 
We were at the foot of an enormous hillock of an 
olive green. " Here is the shepherd's cabin," my 
companion said, pointing upward. On the sum- 
mit, a huge circular cabin with a conical roof was 
outlined against the golden sky. Wicker pali- 
sades make a black line around the base of the hil- 
lock. Coming nearer, I see that the cabin roof is 
made of branches and reeds, and is surmounted by 
a wooden cross, with the spear and the ladder. 
The arrival of our vehicle brings out three men 
from within. They salute, and the oldest of the 
three approaches, hat in hand. " Buona sera!" 
he says, and with him we enter this abode, of which 
he is the master. The hut that these Roman shep- 
herds have built for themselves is spacious and 
convenient. It is to last them two years or three; 
and then the encampment will be selected 
elsewhere. 

Here we have the true pastoral life — on one 
side are the shepherds' beds, in two rows, one 
almost on the level of the ground, the other four 
feet higher; opposite are tables where the new 
cheeses are lying; and there are all the utensils and 
implements of dairy work. In the centre of the 
floor there is quite a deep hole in the earth, where 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. H5 

the remains of a fagot are burning. The wind, 
passing freely through, from one door to the other, 
keeps the fire brisk and drives away the smoke. 
" I think it will be cold to-night, Eccellenza" says 
the head shepherd; and, as he speaks, he watches, 
with half closed eyes, a bluish star rising above 
the mists of the horizon. 

" Are the sheep in?" 

" They are on the way, Eccellenza; I have heard 
those that are coming from the west." 

" Meanwhile, show my friend the chairs that you 
make in the winter evenings." 

Upon this two men bring out chairs of red wood, 
whose backs and seats and arms are very finely 
carved by hand. The designs vary but little; there 
are crosses, chalices, monstrances with unequal 
rays, and laurel branches around the principal ob- 
ject — truly graceful and with artistic curves. 

Signor P. says, to me that the twenty-six shep- 
herds who occupy this cabin leave it late in June 
to return to the far-away village, now buried in 
the snows of the Apennines, where dwell their 
wives and children, their mothers and their sweet- 
hearts. " They are a long time making prepara- 
tion for the journey," he says, " taking great care 
to carry everything they will need for themselves 
and for the sheep. To be sure of doing this they 
abandon the house entirely two or three days be- 
fore they go away, and make a camp at some dis- 
tance, that they may know if they have left behind 



146 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

anything that they will require. Then, by slow 
stages, they lead the flocks toward the mountains." 
We went outside. In ten minutes the land had 
grown almost dark, while the sky, heavy with 
flickering mists on the horizon, remained pale over- 
head. A dull noise came up from the valley, and 
something moving, like a sheet of fog undulating 
in the wind, covered the lower slopes of the hill. 
It is the four thousand sheep of the domain in a 
compact mass. By degrees I distinguish the white 
dogs leaping around them, the shepherds on 
foot hemming them in, their brown cloaks drag- 
ging on the grass, and the leader on horseback 
who brings up the rear. Altogether, without 
being hurried, they come up, with a continu- 
ous motion and a sound of rolling pebbles, 
like a tide of the ocean. My companion hur- 
ries me to the palisade I had noticed surround- 
ing the hillock. A series of small holes in it let 
the sheep in, one by one, and as they enter, they 
pass by so many sentry boxes, in each of which is 
a man. The rapidity with which this immense 
flock is milked is something marvellous. Twenty- 
six shepherds are there in line. The sheep, massed 
outside, crowed toward the twenty-six entrances. 
Entering into a narrow passageway, they are 
caught with a wooden fork over the neck, are 
milked in an instant, let go, and are followed by 
others. In less than an hour the milking is all 
done. 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 147 

As we go down the slope, the night is almost 
black around us. A thick mist fills the air. The 
veiled stars sleep above the Tiber. Trotting 
down over the grass, the horse suddenly shies. It 
is a lad of fourteen, a young shepherd, who stands, 
cap in hand, as we go by. " Is that you, my lad? 
You are late," the master says; and the boy re- 
plies, unabashed, with a gay young voice that is 
pleasant to hear, in the great silence of the Agro. 
When he has gone past us, Signor P. relates an 
incident of two months ago. This lad was keep- 
ing four hundred sheep by the river, and the idea 
came into his mind to> put his cap on a lamb's head. 
He secured the cap with a reed, then let the animal 
loose among the flock; whereupon a fearful panic 
broke out. Maddened at the sight of this hatted 
lamb running after them, the sheep galloped wildly 
around and around the pasture, and then would 
have ended by plunging into the river, had not the 
vergaro, perceiving the danger from afar, dashed 
down from the hilltop on horseback, and reached 
the bank just in time to turn them back. 

And with the story of this little adventure the 
time passes, the carriage slips rapidly over the 
grass, and night settles over the land. 

Santa-Maria. 
A gray, rainy morning, the 8th of December. 
It is the Feast of the Immaccolata, and the festa of 
the village Santa-Maria, far distant, fifteen miles 



148 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

away from the city. I set off alone in a cab. The 
rain is falling-, heavy, icy; it seems to make the 
horse still leaner, and his wet skin shows the action 
of the bones. Oh, the slow, dull road! • At in- 
tervals it is crossed by rivulets of mud. It winds 
about, ascends a little, descends a little, never 
much, across pastures which the cloud shuts in on 
every side. There is no horizon ; only lines of wall 
cutting stretches of grass; here and there a herd 
of cattle, motionless and stupid in the pouring 
rain. Nothing moves but ourselves. There is 
not the faintest sound except our wheels crush- 
ing the wet earth. How plainly I see that the 
sole beauty of this wilderness, like the sole beauty 
of life, lies in its distant prospects and in its sky! 

The isolated taverns, the poor osterie placed 
every few miles by the roadside, are shut close 
against the rain. There are people within telling 
each other stories of strayed horses and dead 
sheep, and of the encroachments of neighbours, 
meanwhile drinking the wine of Tivoli. But the 
sound of their voices is lost up the chimney. We 
keep on in this little solitude whose scenery seems 
to go along with us, so completely the same is it 
between the walls of blinding rain. 

Finally, about eleven o'clock, the figure of a 
horseman, wrapped in a cloak, becomes visible on 
the right side of the road. He leads a second 
horse by the bridle. It is the vergaro, the head 
shepherd, sent out to meet me. I leap on the 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 149 

horse's back, and the cab, turning, is soon out of 
sight, while we advance through the new grain, 
which is extremely beautiful. 

" How many hectares are cultivated here, 
vergaro? " 

" Three hundred and forty out of eighteen hun- 
dred [864 acres out of 4446] ." 

Flocks of small birds rise before the horses' feet. 
We ascend a hill, trotting up in the drain chan- 
nels, and then go down a long slope, always 
covered with the same mantle of young wheat. 
At the foot Signor P. joins us, on a fine horse. 
He is the farmer of this tenuta, as well as of the 
other which I 'have visited. It is said at Rome 
that he is one of the best agriculturists upon the 
Campagna. And I am confirmed in this idea as I 
again see the same admirable plan of cultivation, 
the choice kinds of grain, and the fields, fertilized 
after the same methods as at Prima Porta, with 
their uncommon wealth of grass and clover. 

Here, however, the surface of the ground is dif- 
ferent. It is much more irregular. As we ap- 
proach the farm buildings, the hills crowd upon 
each other, separated by gorges. Many are 
wooded, but the large part serve only as pastures. 
On the summit of one, in the light blue of the 
Italian middle distance, — for the sun has come out 
and the clouds are gone, — I perceive ruins. 
"A ruined village? " " Yes." "How ruined? " 
" Some say by malaria." " And others? " " By 



150 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

the act of some great landowner. These owners 
used gradually to buy up the country, and then 
drive away the inhabitants, so that they might be 
the masters. But I am not sure; it was a great 
while ago*." 

As the vergaro spoke we were descending a 
gentle slope, by a very admirable road, bordered 
on one side with magnificent clumps of laurel, — 
the poet's laurel, — a remnant of a Sacred Grove 
where the Muses might still weep undisturbed. 
Some of the branches had been stripped of their 
leaves, and I asked my companion, in much sur- 
prise, who had plundered his laurels. " The Ger- 
mans," he said. And it appeared that this is one 
of the sources of income from this domain and 
those adjacent. The Germans buy these laurel- 
leaves by the hundred-weight, and use them in the 
manufacture of Prussian blue. 

I was not expecting such an answer as this, or 
to see the leaves of Italian laurels go in that direc- 
tion. We enter the courtyard of the farm by a 
handsome gateway, and dismount near a heap of 
bales of leaves tied up compactly, and ready to be 
sent away. 

I was shown a sheepfold containing animals of 
pure breed, bought at the national French ber- 
gerie at Rambouillet. These sheep cross so well 
with the native Italian breed that a neighbouring 
proprietor had no sooner perceived the excellent 
results obtained by Signor P.'s initiative than he 



ROM AM HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 15 1 

telegraphed to Rambouillet for ewes and wethers 
of the same breed. " He telegraphed," said my 
host, evidently much impressed by the act; " he 
placed himself completely at the discretion of the 
French manager, and so honourable are your great 
national establishments that he received animals 
in every respect as fine as those which I had 
chosen on the spot." 

However, without saying too much about it, — 
for I am considered here to be quite a farmer, and 
it is always a pity to destroy a flattering illusion, — 
I find a much keener pleasure in walking about the 
courtyard where all the farm hands are now as- 
sembled. The place is full of men in black clothes, 
some wearing cloaks, all rather harsh of aspect, 
talking together in groups. They came to attend 
high mass, on occasion of the festa of their patron- 
ess, the Madonna, which has been sung in the very 
ancient church attached to the chateau at the back 
of the courtyard. 

Sometimes a group start together and go into 
a long, low building, the right wing of the court- 
yard. Following, I find them smoking and drink- 
ing in one of the rooms occupied by that person- 
age, indispensable and generally prosperous on the 
Roman Campagna, the trader. Each farm is like 
a little town, which must contain all that is need- 
ful for itself and for the inhabited environs, if such 
there be. It is the sole resource, the centre of 
supplies. The trader at Santa-Maria, a Swiss, 



15 2 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

whose pink-and-white complexion was on odd con- 
trast to the bearded and bronzed faces of his cus- 
tomers, sells salt pork, groceries, wines, material 
for clothing, whatever is required. I purchase a 
box of Egyptian cigarettes, and distribute them, 
to the great delight of the black-beards, who show 
an unexpected capability of smiling. I learn that 
this trader has a flourishing business of 50,000 lire 
[$10,000] a year, and that he pays a rent of 500 
[$100] a month. 

One red cassock, and then a second, cross the 
courtyard. These are students of the Austro- 
Hungarian College, who have come out with their 
superiors to attend the festa. The domain is an 
ecclesiastical patrimony, granted by some Pope 
long ago, for the support of the Austrian seminary 
in Rome. The passage of these students through 
the courtyard indicates that the dignitaries of the 
college will soon come out, and that dinner will be 
announced. I have only time to look at the gar* 
den on the other side. 

What an enchanting place it must be in the 
spring — this sheltered garden, with its orange and 
mandarin trees! Even in winter it has its charm. 
One imagines the completed outline of the grace- 
ful trees which are now leafless, and where the 
flower-beds will be, and how lovely the outlook 
over fields already showing the springing grain; 
the lemon trees, more delicate, it seems, are de- 
fended against frost by a roof of reeds resting 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 153 

against the wall. I have seen this movable cover 
before, and the perfume which escapes from it 
brings to my mind Sicily, Palermo, the Conca d' 
Oro. 

The bell rings. The court is instantly half de- 
serted. We sit down at table in a whitewashed 
hall in the second story of the manor, at the back 
of the courtyard. I have never in my life, I believe, 
seen a more astonishing variety of guests. Around 
the table, covered with white linen and decorated 
with apples, pears, and fennel-roots, there are the 
rector of the college and the superintendent of the 
domain, both Austrians, and wearing the black cas- 
sock; Signor P., a Roman; the Swiss sutler, in his 
jacket; the curate of the farm; the guard, in blue 
livery piped with red, and silver on the collar; the 
chief farmer, the chief butcher, the chief shepherd 
and his retired predecessor; lastly, two students 
in scarlet cassocks, like cardinals. 

It is an ancient and praiseworthy custom, thus 
to invite the principal employees of the domain to 
an annual banquet. They are respectful, but not 
abashed or servile. The conversation, partly in 
Roman patois and partly in French, half escapes 
them. They eat royally, like vigorous men to 
whom life on horseback gives a prodigious appe- 
tite. But when they talk it is with much vivac- 
ity. And the most alive, the most interesting 
person among them all is, perhaps, the former 
head shepherd, an old man of seventy-two, broad 



154 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

of chest and shoulder, the face sunburned and 
tanned, the beard only just beginning to turn gray, 
curled in twists like the beards of Greek statues; 
the hair abundant and tossed about in great locks. 
He has spent all his life among the shepherds and 
the flocks of the domain: in the winter and spring 
at Santa-Maria; in the summer among the moun- 
tains. It would have killed him if, when he 
was retired from service, he had been separated 
from his flock, his comrades, and the cabin. Ac- 
cordingly, he is allowed, although no longer 
the responsible head, to return in the autumn 
with the masseria. He still spends his time on 
horseback, keeping watch over the men and the 
animals. 

" It is because the air is good at Santa-Maria, ,, 
he says, lifting his yellow eyes. " There are not 
many of my age on the Campagna." 

After this, being questioned by the manager, he 
relates in short sentences, with rather a shame- 
faced air, how he was attacked at nightfall, two 
years ago, by the famous Anzuini. The brigand, 
accompanied by one of his band, entered the cabin 
where the vergaro was with four other shepherds. 
Anzuini placed the muzzle of his gun at the old 
man's head. 

" What did you do, my poor friend? " 

" I understood what he meant," the shepherd 
said; "I gave him what I had, 170 lire." The 
next morning the brigand was at work, in the 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 155 

same fashion, near Viterbo. He had gone twenty 
miles on foot during the night. 

I ought to add, for the peace of mind of those 
who might be tempted to visit Santa-Maria, 
that Anzuini was afterward captured. This in- 
dustry, with time, has grown difficult; and our 
mothers, who tell of their wedding journey be- 
tween Rome and Naples as a venturesome expedi- 
tion, were the last who could speak thus without 
falsehood. At most, you w 7 ill be told, if you 
insist, that there are still alive two or three 
brigands who have given up the business, retiring 
on a pension, contemporaneously with their for- 
mer judges. There will be mentioned to you, by 
name, certain peaceable persons who, having 
given up the somewhat brusque habits of their 
youth, are now in the receipt of stipends, that they 
may not be tempted to fall back into those habits! 
Their neighbours are delighted thus to keep them 
in the paths of virtue. Prince X. pays a regular 
pension to Tiburzio, whom everybody remembers 
— Tiburzio of Viterbo. At least, so it is reported, 
and it has been said in print by a Sicilian, Luigi 
Capnana, 1 who is eager to defend his poor and 
lovely island from the misplaced accusations of 
the Italian mainland. As for the prince, I fancy, 
if anyone had the frankness to question him, he 
would smile enigmatically, and twist the end of his 
brown moustache, and would give no answer. Is 

1 La Sicilia e il brigantaggio . Roma, Editore il Folchetto, 1892. 



I5 6 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

not a man at liberty to protect his property by any 
guards that it pleases him to employ? 

Eastward from Rome. 

I will designate in no other way the point that 
I have visited to-day, because I have too serious 
criticisms to make. It is enough to say that the 
domain of which I speak is beyond the reach of 
" the ten-kilometre law," and that it belongs to a 
great Roman noble. 

It is past noon as we emerge, my guide and I, 
from the walled inclosure surrounding the farm 
buildings, which still retain their feudal aspect. 
Labour has been resumed. On the floor of the 
barn, men and women are husking the Indian 
corn which lies in a golden heap at their feet. 
They have an air of distress and fatigue. The 
caporale, their chief, the contractor for the band, a 
dwarfish figure with keen eyes, goes from one 
barn to another. Neither as he passes, nor when 
we go by, is a single head turned with a smile, or 
a mouth opened with a word of recognition or of 
greeting. Why should there be? what are we to 
them? They feel themselves strangers on this 
domain where no one but the caporale knows 
them by name; neither the head farmer, nor the 
owner, nor the guard, nor any person. They are 
only a flock of mountaineers from the Abruzzi, de- 
livered here on contract for the harvesting; in a 
month they will return home, and next year they 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 157 

will be at work on the other side of the Cam- 
pagna. 

"Are they numerous on the tenuta? I ask of 
the guide. 

" There are about four hundred here now/' he 
says, " but in the summer not more than a dozen." 

" This is the usual condition of the farms in the 
Agro," the guide adds, divining my thoughts; 
" They are not happy. If it were not for their 
religion, they would revolt." 

I can readily believe him,. 

We follow a chain of hills, and then a valley 
where a herd of cows is pastured. They have 
those handsome, widespread horns, long and fine, 
and that smooth, gray coat, which painters have 
never faithfully represented. Around them the 
pasturage is poor; it extends on before us, as far 
as a distant hillock whose curve is outlined upon 
the sky, surmounted by a shepherd's cabin. Our 
horses break into a gallop, as we ascend the hill, 
and the ground rings under their feet. An old 
woman appears at the door of the cabin. She, at 
least, smiles — this old woman! 

" Will you have a fresh egg? " she asks, and my 
companion replies that he would like it. 

" Lavinia! Lavinia! " the old woman calls, and 
a little tangle-haired girl runs to get an egg from 
the hen-house adjacent to the cabin. She hands 
it up to my companion, who, with a large pin, 
pierces the two ends, drinks off the yolk and white 



15 8 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

almost at one swallow, and throws down the un- 
broken shell. " This is the Roman way! " he says. 

We go on, descending the rapid slope toward 
an immense fallow field, steaming in the sun. In 
the first third of this field, wrapped in a golden 
mist, which shines like a halo around them, a band 
of a hundred peasants, their backs turned toward 
us, are slowly going forward breaking up the clods 
with pick and shovel. Not one is inactive. The 
flash of the blades runs uninterrupted from one 
end of the line to the other. The women are in 
red, the men in darker colours. One young fellow 
has a white pigeon on his shoulder; the bird flut- 
ters his wings, without taking flight, every time 
that his master stoops, following the rhythmic drop 
of the spade. Alone among this human herd, two 
overseers, tall, booted, are not at work, but lean- 
ing on their staves, survey the labourers. It is, 
perhaps, an injustice for me to think of this, but 
in spite of myself the spectacle leads my mind back 
to the ancient days, when, under the superintend- 
ence of a few favoured ones, slaves cultivated the 
latifundia of the Agro. The difference is slight. 
I ask my guide where these people are lodged, 
and he replies that there are two camps at some 
distance. Learning that we can visit both within 
an hour, I decide to do so. 

Behind this battalion of rude clod-breakers we 
pass, and not one turns his head; our horses step 
noiselessly, besides, over the soft earth. But for 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 159 

this irregular line of small black points, the vast 
Campagna is deserted. Deserted are the slopes 
that look like fronts of earthworks or like cliffs 
eroded by some furious inundation, and crowned 
with a few trees; deserted the fields; deserted the 
waste land, stony, surrounded with embankments 
which end with a Roman arch, isolated, covered 
with ivy, mysterious as the one letter of some ob- 
literated inscription. Beyond the bridge a great 
marsh, half drained, or rather a stretch of very low 
ground, through which streamlets wander and 
where still stand a few broken stalks of Indian corn. 

We advance very slowly, and see in front, a little 
to the right, a sort of denuded, oval hill, having 
the form and colour of a flattened pear, its stem 
lying in the marsh. Lines of huts rear themselves 
upon it, the nearer ones almost blending with the 
ground, the remoter clearly outlined against the 
sky. This, then, is the village! We urge our 
horses forward. 

There is a first bridge, made of sticks, poorly 
bound together, thrown across a muddy channel; 
then a miserable, uncultivated little island; then 
a second branch of the stream, in which half a 
dozen ragged girls are washing clothes. They 
raise themselves a little as we pass, without drop- 
ping the handful of wet linen. But no one smiles. 
There is not a gleam of happy life in these young 
eyes; nothing but the reproach of discouraged 
poverty — the unjust reproach addressed to the 



160 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

whole world — which hurts you when you see it. 
I feel it follow us after we have passed. And in 
front, on the edge of the hillock, where the village 
stands, the same look, loaded with the same re- 
proach, meets us again. 

A group of old women and children, motionless, 
seated, are warming themselves in the sun. We 
pass, without a salutation from anyone, along the 
passageway between the rows of huts. There are 
seventy-five in all, making four or five streets upon 
the rising ground. They are all built in the same 
way — two palisades of reeds from the marsh be- 
low, bent together and secured at the top by a 
transverse pole; another triangular palisade mak- 
ing the wall at the back; and another in front, in 
which an opening for entrance is cut out. 

This is the shelter which a proprietor, a grand 
seigneur, who receives 100,000 lire annually from 
this domain alone, deigns to offer to his labourers. 
We are but a few miles away from Rome, in a land 
of very ancient civilization, and here are huts with 
which no savage would be content, where live, for 
nine months in the year, more than three hundred 
persons, men and women, where children are born, 
and where others fall ill and die. I am so surprised 
and shocked at this spectacle that I dismount to 
examine it more closely. 

Stooping almost double, I enter through a hole 
cut in the palisade, and lift my head in the pres- 
ence of a very beautiful young woman, with the 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 161 

almond-shaped eyes and the perfect features of the 
purest classic type. She is surrounded by smoke, 
for in a hole in the ground, in this cabin without a 
chimney, corn-waste is smouldering under an 
earthen pot. The first thing I notice is the great 
gold ring which hangs at her ear. I question her, 
and she tells me that she is a native of the Sabina, 
three years married, and that she has two children. 
I ask where are the little ones, and she points out 
a little boy in trousers, on the floor near the bed 
at the back of the hut; the bed, that is to say, the 
heap of cornstalks and grass on some kind of tres- 
tle not clearly discernible through the smoke, with 
a soiled covering stretched over it, and for a blan- 
ket against the cold of the night a mat of plaited 
rushes! She appears gentle and resigned. I ask 
for the second child, and she leans smiling over a 
basket on the ground, quite near the fire. The 
rest of the furniture you could hold in one hand — 
two or three small earthen pots, a tin cover, a 
package of herbs — this last, no doubt, as a protec- 
tion against fever. 

It makes one's heart ache. Now, I can better 
understand the excitement which centres around 
this question of the Agro romano. Nothing to be 
done! Is it really possible to make an asser- 
tion like this? Yes; at Rome, in a drawing 
room, men will gravely unfold their theory of 
life in the open air, and praise the healthfulness 
of light encampments like tents! But here, on 



162 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

the spot, when you take note of the total indif- 
ference of the owner, when you see the complete 
desolation in which these poor farm hands are 
left, the absence of all aid, of all care, of all com- 
fort, you ask yourself if the men who talk in 
that way have seen the Roman Campagna; and 
you feel that on the day when socialism shall get 
the better of the long patience of these nomads 
of the Agro, the day when they shall begin, in 
their turn, a Servile War, certain self-centred 
owners of Roman soil will reap nothing more than 
what they have sown. 

I express my opinion very distinctly to the man 
who accompanies me, as we ride away from the 
village. 

" You have not seen all," he says to me. " But 
you are able now to judge of the condition of our 
peasants. This is called lodging them. Yes, they 
have permission to cut the reeds; and, in other 
cases, the owners offer them houses of a kind 
which I will show you later on." 

I recognized in the brief speech of my com- 
panion that tone of irony covering an extreme of 
feeling which I had many times observed in talk- 
ing with Romans of the lower class who were in- 
terested in the affairs of the Campagna, The face 
remains impassive. Only the eyes speak after the 
lips have ceased talking. 

" And is there no one," I said, " who sets an 
example of better things? " 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 163 

" There are a few. There is Prince Felice Bor- 
ghese, who has clone much good and spent much 
money, at Fossa Nuova, There are two or three 
more. But most of the landowners are satisfied if 
they get their quarterly rent in advance; and they 
think they are square with everybody because 
everybody is square with them. Come a little to 
the left, signor. The earth is too wet just here." 

And, indeed, at the moment we had to make a 
circuit to avoid a streak of marsh. Three mules 
passed us, loaded with the corn waste which 
serves as fuel for the peasants of the domain. 
Then we struck higher ground, and after a quar- 
ter of an hour came to the cattle-path through 
the field, which led to a large building roofed with 
tiles, on a hill-top. 

" This is where the farm hands are lodged who 
come for a short season, as at sowing or harvest," 
my guide said. 

The building was only a barn, with a kitchen 
at one end. I brought my horse up to the side of 
the wall, and leaned in at a window. There was 
a musty odour, as of a messroom, mingled with 
smoke. All around the hall was a row of beds on 
the ground, and five feet higher another row, sup- 
ported by a light wooden framework. Each row 
of beds was double. The beds themselves were 
heaps of leaves or straw, covered here with a rag- 
ged sheet, there with a worn-out petticoat. Men, 
women, married couples, the young, the old, the 



1 64 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

sick, sleep here in complete promiscuity. This is 
not merely an insufficient shelter, like what I have 
just seen. This is different, this mere heap of 
humanity, this barn where hygiene counts for little 
and morals for nothing at all. Underlying each 
case the same neglect. 

Some women, hearing us approach, came out. 
One, very tall, very old, with her gray hair in elf- 
locks over her ears, and frightfully sunken eyes, 
looked at me a moment, then said: 

" Siete il medico?" 

"Alas, no! I am not the doctor. Have you 
someone sick? " 

" There are three with fever. One of them has 
been sick four days." 

My companion shrugged his shoulders; he 
seemed vexed. 

" You have not notified the caporale? " he 
said. 

" Oh, yes! " the woman rejoined meekly; " but 
the doctor has not come/' 

I gave a little money to these poor creatures, 
and we rode on. 

On my way back to the city I saw a splendid 
sight. In a field which was axe-shaped, broaden- 
ing in the distance, fifteen pair of gray oxen were 
ploughing in line. The fifteen ploughs were exactly 
aligned, opening and throwing out earth which 
was a reddish-purple colour. These are the same 
implements of husbandry that Vergil saw — an iron 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 165 

wedge, two wooden wings in front of a joist, a 
round platform behind, traversed by an upright 
stick. On the platform stands the labourer, with 
one hand holding by the upright, with the other 
using the goad. And these beautiful, primitive 
forms of labour, — the immense oxen, the small 
plough, the man, motionless and stately, — were 
moving slowly forward, leaving half the field fur- 
rowed and steaming behind them. 

Then, into the space already gone over by them, 
in their wake, a sixteenth plough, driven by a 
young man of twenty, came suddenly and rapidly. 
No doubt the youth had noticed us, and our 
presence stimulated his vanity. His movements 
were supple and graceful in the extreme. It 
seemed as if he were driving horses instead of 
oxen, so quickly did he trace in every direction, 
over the already broken soil, water channels for 
carrying off the rains. He appeared to be run- 
ning over the ground for his pleasure, — drawn 
by these great beasts, trained expressly for the 
work, who turned sharply, almost grazed the 
trees in passing, came back towards us, their 
horns high, the wrinkled skin on the shoulders 
quivering, — and, meanwhile, he followed with his 
eye a route of slopes invisible to us. He smiled 
now and then, this Roman youth, as if delighting 
to show to the two* Barbarians lingering on an ad- 
jacent hill-top what a Roman could do with his 
team, two gray Campagna oxen. 



166 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Maccarese. 

This is, again, an unwholesome region, on the 
west of Rome, northward from Ostia, and near 
the sea. 

The tenuta of Maccarese, which I am going to 
see, one of the largest of the Agro rornano, about 
fourteen thousand acres, is part of the ancient 
Campo Salino', the saline marshes whence the 
Sabines obtained their salt. The neighbourhood 
and the infiltrations of the salt water, the impossi- 
bility of carrying off by natural channels the water 
of springs and rains, — for in certain places the 
ground is a foot lower than the sea-level, — render a 
residence here dangerous, especially in the sum- 
mer, when the intense heat draws up and diffuses 
the miasma. 

According to the statistics of a country doctor 
living in this region, the average of fever cases 
anually is as follows: farmers and labourers, who 
remain uninterruptedly, ninety-five per cent.; 
overseers and superintendents, who are better fed, 
and who are often in Rome for a longer or shorter 
stay, forty per cent.; owners resident in Rome, 
who come out into the country, but are careful not 
to remain over night during the bad season, fifteen 
per cent. It has been necessary to establish sani- 
tary stations from point to point, and fever pa- 
tients are now cared for on the spot. But the 
medical men in charge of twenty or twenty-five 
domains must lose a good deal of valuable time 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 167 

going from one to another. The former system 
is regretted by some; I myself am not in a posi- 
tion to decide between the two. The old method 
was to< send every person into the city, to the Hos- 
pital San Spirito. In the time of the Popes any 
man who brought in a fever patient received a 
reward of two lire [forty cents]. Taking this and 
charity together, it appears that very few of the 
poor were neglected when attacked with fever. 
Means of prevention are taken by the railway 
company whose line traverses this part of the 
Campagna. The employees all the way to Gros- 
seto, in Tuscany, have only alternate days of duty 
on the Campagna, being retained the other days 
in Rome. 

A condition of things like this could not fail to 
attract the attention of the authors of the project 
for the improvement of the Agro. Two plans 
were proposed — one, to fill up the salt marshes 
with earth brought from other regions; the sec- 
ond, to draw off the water by steam pumps. The 
latter idea prevailed, and I am to see close at hand 
the result. 

I leave Rome very early in the morning with 
the son of a former ambassador from France 
to Rome, and with Prince Camillo Rospigliosi, 
younger brother of Don Giuseppe, who will meet 
us at Maccarese. Both the brothers were once 
pontifical zouaves. The elder (who is dark) now 
belongs to the " White " world; the younger 



1 68 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY, 

(who is fair) remains " Black." They are joint 
owners of the tenuta of Maccarese, held by this 
family since the year 1675; in, great part they 
manage it themselves, are perfectly in sympa- 
thy with each other, and are thorough types 
of the Roman patrician, having relations of 
friendship and marriage among the European 
aristocracy, speaking French, thoroughly men 
of the present day, and courteous in the high- 
est degree. The railway by which we go, 
that of Civita Vecchia, is regarded as fruitful 
in accidents. It seems that the embankments 
easily give way under rains and from the action 
of concealed springs. As a matter of fact, the ex- 
tremely slow rate at which we cross a bridge over 
the Tiber suggests to the mind a vague anxiety. 
But nothing goes wrong. 

We leave on the left the eucalyptus grove of the 
celebrated Abbey Tre Fontane, which has not been 
sufficient itself alone to purify the Campagna, and, 
indeed, but poorly protects the inmates of the 
abbey. The aspect of the Campagna here is ex- 
tremely sad: swampy pastures extending as far as 
the eye can see, here and there spotted with dark- 
green clumps of box. On the right the ground is 
higher and less monotonous. There are thickets 
of wild olive, pistachio, judas tree, dogwood, ar- 
butus, holly; a dozen kinds of shrubs, bound to- 
gether by half withered climbing plants, among 
which I recognize the cottony umbel of the clem- 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 169 

atis. The chief owner of these thickets is the 
Hospital San Spirito; over twelve miles, as the 
bird flies, belongs to it. Here the state might have 
a field for experiment, and show what it under- 
stands by colonization, clearing, and sanitary im- 
provement on the great domains. The law leaves 
this perfectly within its competence, but there 
seems a hesitation about making the attempt. 
Far away, in very beautiful outlines, the blue 
mountains, capped with snow, limit the plain and 
the view. 

The train stops at Maccarese, at a solitary sta- 
tion alone in the flat Campagna, and surrounded 
by a few clumps of eucalyptus trees. Don Giu- 
seppe comes toward us, and seven or eight horses 
are ready for us outside the palisades. It is sting- 
ing cold. We wrap ourselves warmly and mount; 
Don Giuseppe, Don Camillo, the young Baron 
Baude, two butteri of the domain, and myself. Our 
horses are of the Roman breed, nervous, habitu- 
ated to two gaits only, the walk and the gallop. 
There has been courteously destined for me an 
English saddle, which I regret, having a secret 
liking for the enormous Roman saddle, high in 
the back and front, made of light and supple 
skin that lets the leg cling fast to the horse's side. 
We cross the railway and are out on the Campagna 
without a road in sight, a grassy plain vast as the 
pampas. There is nothing to be seen in this wil- 
derness but lines of fences, dividing the plain at 



170 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

remote intervals, and some far-off leafless trees, 
forming avenues leading nowhither. The earthy 
yellow of the dead vegetation extends indefinitely, 
somewhat gilded on ridges by the morning sun. 
There is a grand, wild poetry about the scene. A 
fox gets away from under our feet, out of a clump 
of boxwood, and for more than a half mile we see 
the tawny flash of his coat and his tail in air as he 
runs. A barrier is before us; one of the butteri, 
saying not a word, spurs his horse to a gallop; 
then, sticking his iron-pointed lance into the end 
of this movable gate, opens it wide; we pass 
through, and the w r ooden bars drop back into 
place behind us. 

A first canal, dug in obedience to the law con- 
cerning the BonHica del Agro. The descent is so 
slight that the water appears stagnant. We cross 
on a little bridge without parapets. On the right 
a drove of mares; on the left a tronco of Roman 
milch cows. The grass is better; and further on 
in this dry part of the domain begins a fine field 
of grain. A young man, perhaps twenty years of 
age, walks between the rows, and taps continu- 
ously with his knuckles on a biscuit-tin, which is 
suspended from his neck. He earns 1.25 [twenty- 
five cents] a day in thus scaring away the larks; 
a crowd of little gray wings beat the air around 
him, fly up a short distance, then alight further 
on, not frightened, scarcely driven away for the 
moment. I see, far off, half a mile distant, a brown 
mass. 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. IJI 

"What is that?" 

" That is part of our herd of buffaloes, which I 
have had) driven up for you to see," rejoins Don 
Giuseppe. 

Three hundred animals are feeding upon a nar-* 
row hillock covered with brush, surrounded by 
several of the men, two mounted, the others on 
foot. We ride in among the herd, and for the 
first time I examine close at hand, and in life, this 
animal, which before I had seen only in pictures 
and in dreams. The impression is not at all what 
I expected. Instead of those savage creatures 
that the popular imagination calumniates, assur- 
edly, I find milch cows, black, with pretty heads 
and very soft, intelligent eyes. The horns are 
curled up near the ears; the head is meagre; the 
body too heavy, attired in a pelt with the hair 
much worn off, which seems to stir in great 
plaques like that of the elephant. The general 
aspect denotes timidity of character. It appears, 
however, that the mothers with their first calves 
are dangerous; also that the old males are for- 
midable when they take to the thicket. Some 
bearded muzzles of bulls, lowered as our horses 
pass, seem to confirm the popular opinion. 

While we are thus surrounded by the moving 
mass of buffaloes, just on the top of the mound, 
Don Camillo turns to the chief herdsman, the 
minorente. 

" What is the name of that cow just turning 
round? " 



172 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

" Scarpe fine e stivaletti (fine shoes and boots)/' 
was the answer. 

" That is a vendor's cry in the streets of Rome," 
Don Camillo said, addressing me. And he in- 
quired the name of another. 

" Pin sta e piii va peggio (the more it goes on, the 
worse it is)." 

"And that little one, with her head on one 
side? " 

" Fa la spia ma fala bene (she plays the spy, but 
does it well)." 

" And this big one? " 

" C'e gran guerra, in alto mare (there is great war 
in the open sea)." 

" You know," Don Camillo explained, " we are 
very near the sea ; and in rough weather the noise 
of the waves is heard all over Maccarese." 

" I understand. But do you mean to say that 
your three hundred buffaloes have names? " 

" You mean the thousand of the whole domain? 
Certainly they have. Neither day nor night do 
the herdsmen make any mistake. And observe, 
the names are all sentences divided into two hemi- 
stichs, each accented on the penult. Never was 
a buffalo cow on all the Campagna called by a 
single word, as ' Star/ or ' Europa/ or ' Nera.' " 

"And why not?" 

" Because the long names have always been the 
custom. Besides this, the animals would not so 
readily hear names less musical. During the night 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 173 

they are shut up within the picket inclosures that 
you have noticed. The calves are shut up in other 
inclosures. At an hour which varies in the differ- 
ent domains — with us it is four in the morning — 
the herdsmen who are to milk the buffalo cows 
take up their position between the two inclosures 
in the open ground. Then they call out two or 
three names, as 'Ce gran gnerra in alto mare! ' with 
great stress on the accentuated syllables, guer-rs. 
and ma-re. The animals hear their names; they 
struggle through the crowd and come up to the 
gate. Meantime the herdsman, turning toward 
the inclosure in which the calves are shut up, re- 
peats the same cry, for the young ones have their 
mothers' names. Then the calves, who, ever since 
they were born have heard themselves called thus, 
' Ce gran gnerra in alto mare! ' or i Scarpe fine e stir 
valetti! ' on their part come to the gate. Then 
these gates are opened, and the mothers and chil- 
dren meet. As soon as the latter have had as much 
milk as is allowed them, they are driven away with 
blows on the neck; and then the buffalo cows sub- 
mit peaceably to be milked by the herdsman, which 
otherwise they would not do." 

This explanation, though so odd, is really the 
literal truth. It has been given me over and over 
again by farmers quite unknown to each other, not 
only on the Campagna, but also in Salerno and in 
Calabria, wherever herds of buffaloes are kept. 

Coming down from this hillock, we go off to the 



174 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

right, toward the sea. The grass grows scantier. 
Water birds, especially lapwings, the under side of 
the wing silvery white, rise around us. Their sweet 
and penetrating cry is all that enlivens the desolate 
plain. The ground slopes continuously. We ar- 
rive at a sort of white lake, spotted with brown 
tufts. This is a dry point in the marsh of Mac- 
carese. Two chimneys, rising above the trees of 
a grove in front of us, indicate where the engines 
are set up which draw off the water and pour it 
into the sea. At periods of heavy rains the pumps 
work night and day. If they stopped, the damp 
soil covered with a crust of salt, on which we are 
walking, would very soon disappear under three 
feet of water. The results obtained here, at an 
annual expense by Government of 60,000 lire 
[$12,000], are, therefore, always precarious. They 
allow portions here and there to be cultivated or 
seeded for grass. The rest, the main part of the 
Campo Salino, must be long worked upon before 
it will bring in the interest of expense so heavy as 
that. 

On the other side of the marsh is a wood of 
century-old oaks, twisted, knotty, torn asunder of 
beheaded by storms and time, like many of those 
which form the famous forests of the Pontine 
Marshes. Then the fields begin again. We rode 
with all speed straight toward the buffalo farm, 
which resembles the shepherds' cabins at Prima 
Porta, except that the circular wall bearing the 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 175 

thatched roof is here built of stone. The last 
milking stands to curdle in great tubs. Cheeses 
hung up in a neighbouring barn are cured in the 
thick smoke which rises froon a fire of green 
branches. 

A second gallop brings us, over fields where the 
trees have been cut down, to a pine wood almost 
of a century's growth. Making a circuit, we come 
suddenly upon this venerable and sculptural forest. 
How well Puvis de Chavannes would render the 
poetry of these beautiful, simple lines and colours ! 
The plain, of a green dulled by the trampling of 
the flocks, crossed by this wall of splendid, branch- 
less, tawny-red tree-trunks, all spreading out to- 
gether seventy feet above the soil, and touching 
each other with their sombre tops; no light falling 
from the sky upon the moss at their feet, but rays 
coming through from the other edge of the wood, 
on the side toward the sea, throwing plaques of 
gold high upon these trunks, like lamps hung 
from the piers of arches. The sea is breaking at a 
little distance upon the sad shore. Is it thence 
that come these motionless gleams, or are there 
little, invisible stagnant ponds that serve as mir- 
rors and adorn the wood with these fairy moons? 
Formerly a belt of forests like this formed a wall 
all along the coast of the Agro romano, and per- 
haps served to protect it against the unwholesome 
wind which blows from the water's edge. This the 
old Romans assert. 



176 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

"What beautiful trees, Don Camillo! " 

" More beautiful than useful; the dampness is 
so great that the wood cannot be used for build- 
ing. Do you know, here we are about the middle 
of the domain, which is longer than it is broad. " 

" How much have you northward? " 

u About four miles." 

" And the other way? M 

" Not quite four and a half." 

To go to the cow farm we follow the edge of a 
strip of 300 hectares [741 acres] of grain, forming 
an unbroken curve around the marsh. The lap- 
wings are so abundant here and so tame, that we 
could easily shoot them if we had brought guns. 

Twice we give chase to enormous bulls. One 
of them, branded on the haunch with the cipher 
of the domain and the figures 88, is the handsomest 
animal that one could imagine. His coat, gray 
on the flanks, becomes black on the withers, and 
the head is dark gray. We leave him raging, 
stopped by a barrier, ploughing up the earth with 
his hoofs, and we enter the farm buildings. An 
outer staircase leads to a very long hall in the 
second story. At the opposite end, near the fire, 
a numerous group of farm labourers, men and 
women, are at dinner. The apartment serves also 
as a dormitory. But it is not of the kind which I 
have seen elsewhere. The beds stand in locked 
closets along the wall. At this moment several 
doors are open. I approach one. A candle, in a 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 177 

movable rest, is fastened to the inside of this 
wooden screen. On each side of it is a map enti- 
tled Imperium romamtm. The owner, the peasant 
who sleeps here, must be passionately fond of 
reading; a little above the bed, in the shadow, I 
can see, nailed against the wall, two shelves, and 
they are filled with books ! The library of a Roman 
cowherd! And I shall forever regret that I did 
not see what they were; but we were in haste. 

Returning, I questioned my host as to the con- 
dition of the labourers of the Campagna, not those 
that we had just seen, but the transient harvesters 
so badly lodged, so sadly neglected. 

" In the present condition of our rural affairs," 
he said, " you can have no idea how difficult it is 
to change anything whatever. We are dependent 
on these caporali, who bring us the Abruzzi labour- 
ers. I ask the one I employ to engage for us the 
siame people year after year, so that we can know 
them a little better; and attach them in some de- 
gree to the domain. He makes me pay him more 
for doing this, because it gives him more trouble! 
By way of amelioration I have made, though we 
are outside the ten kilometre limit, separate lodg- 
ings for the married couples. There are a great 
many other things that we should gladly do, but 
we are so heavily taxed! If Government would 
exempt us for five years, we would transform 
things!" 

Finally we dismount at the Chateau de Mac- 



l 7 8 THE IT A LI AX S OF TO-DAY. 

carese, where we are to breakfast. The butteri lead 
away the horses. Some hunting dogs, who have 
escaped from their kennel, come leaping around us. 
A blacksmith's hammer is heard from a corner of 
the courtyard, where he is making a cart-wheel. 

Civilized life reappears in the person of an old 
butler, who leads the way into the enormous feudal 
residence, flanked with two square towers, where 
a regiment could be lodged in case of need. 
Through the windows of the hall where the table 
is laid the eye wanders over the limitless green 
expanse; here and there traversed by a line of 
trees or flecked by a cluster of elms; it resem- 
bles, and in the spring must especially resemble, 
the English country. 

I desired much to know the yield, in detail, of a 
great domain like this; and the two Princes Ros- 
pigliosi, who are most accomplished agriculturists 
and have the accounts of their tenuta kept with 
great accuracy, have kindly furnished me with the 
figures. 

This is what I have learned. The domain of 
Maccarese, which consists, as I have said, of 5560 
hectares [13,733 acres], is half cultivated by the 
owners themselves, and half rented. At a time 
when the whole was leased, it brought in 160,000 
lire [$32,000], from which the land tax had to be 
deducted. At the present time the part which is 
let, comprising almost all the arable land, or at 
least nearly all now under cultivation, 400 hec- 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. 179 

tares [988 acres] gives a return of 86,000 lire 
[$17,200]. The eight hundred cattle and a hun- 
dred horses that are fed on this land belong to the 
princes; the farmer who hires the land having only 
a masseria of three or four thousand sheep. 

The rest of the domain, managed by the princes, 
of which only 60 hectares [150 acres] are cultivated 
land, had, on the 30th of September of the past 
year, 1050 buffaloes, 99 horses, 22 oxen, 114 cows 
and bulls. Now, such a herd of buffaloes brings in 
about 40,000 lire [$8000] annually. In a single 
month it often gives a value of 3500 lire [$700] in 
cheese. The cows' milk can be sold only in win- 
ter and spring. 

As for the taxes, always paid by the owners, 
even on whjat is let, they have prodigiously in- 
creased. In 1855 they were, for Maccarese, 2000 
crowns, that is, about 10,000 lire [$2000]. At the 
present time must be added the taxes of the state, 
of the province, and of the commune; also the 
taxes upon cattle: five lire for a bull, three for a 
cow, one and a half for a calf. The entire tax for 
the domain of Maccarese is as follows: 



Imposta governativa, .... 32,406 lire 42 cen. 
" provinciate, .... i,37o %i 44 " 

" cotnmunale, .... 3,206 " 68 " 

Tax on cattle, 2,770 



39,753 " S4 
[$7,9S°.7o] 



180 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Adding to this sum the tax of about 3000 lire 
[$600] that the tenant farmer pays on his cattle, 
it appears that a domain which was formerly let 
for 160,000 lire [$32,000], and would not bring in 
as much as that now, owing to the present crisis 
in the affairs of the Campagna, is loaded with over 
42,000 lire [$8400] of taxes. 

When, at nightfall, I was taking leave of my 
hosts — who remained at Maccarese — to return to 
the city, two sportsmen appeared in their long 
swamp-boots. They had been shooting all day 
over the domain, and came in, their game bags 
full. Although only one of them was known to 
the Princes Rospigliosi, and neither had obtained 
permission, they were very pleasantly received — 
which probably would not have been the case in 
France — when they came, quite at their ease, to 
shake hands with the owners; for a law peculiar to 
the Agro permits anyone to shoot over the do- 
mains, whether public or private. 

I was soon on my way to the station in a light 
carriage, driven by one of our morning's horse- 
men. On the way I inquired if any improvement 
had been felt in the air of Maccarese. 

" Signor, there is always some fever; but the 
more serious cases are less frequent than formerly/' 
was the answer. 

I asked to what cause this comparative exemp- 
tion was attributed. 

" Some say," my driver replied, " that the sea- 



ROMAN HOUSES, AND THE CAMPAGNA. l8l 

sons happen to be better, as has been at times the 
case heretofore. For my part, I believe it is due 
to the improvements made in the land. But they 
are still incomplete," he added. " The Campagna 
is so large — so large ! " 

He made a gesture, a broad semicircular sweep 
of the hand. And before us, to right and left, the 
grassy plain stretched away without an undula- 
tion, without a barrier. The sky, pale blue over- 
head, pink in the west, was still bright above 
the infinite, russet-coloured expanse. Nothing 
stirred; not a flock of # sheep in sight, not a bird 
even. Nothing broke the vast solitude. A slight 
vapour, with a perfume of crushed herbs, rose from 
the soil. And, from point to point, far away in the 
increasing darkness of the vast field, a sparkle that 
quickly vanished, indicated standing water. 



III. 

SOUTHERN ITALY. 

To urge their horses, the Norwegians imitate 
the sound of a kiss, the Arabs roll their r'$, the 
Neapolitan driver seems to bark — " Wah! wah! " 
And all the horses seem to understand. They are 
very numerous in Naples, go very fast, and are not 
expensive to keep. They are the prime luxury, the 
absolutely necessary display for every family de- 
sirous to have or to keep a certain social rank. 
The most impoverished cannot dispense with their 
carriage. They may economize in the table, never 
entertaining and stinting themselves to the cheap- 
est bill of fare; but their carriage they must have 
for the five o'clock drive on the via Caracciolo. 
It is true that the barouche, with two horses and 
the driver, can be hired for 300 lire [$60] a month. 

The second luxury which Neapolitan custom re- 
quires is a box at the S&n Carlo. There are three 
performances a week, and three series — Tornata A, 
B, and C. The first is the most fashionable. My 
neighbour the baron would on no account fail of 
this double duty: he has his horses and his opera 
box. It is said that his patrimony is impaired. 
Very probably it is; these things are not uncom- 

182 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 183 

mon in Italy. I have no certain information as to 
that, but it is a fact that he still employs sixteen 
servants. Two only are lodged in the house — the 
concierge and his wife. The others come for the 
day. The baroness, a woman of fashion, rises late. 
At about half-past eleven she goes out for a passe- 
giata under the trees by the sea, where the Prince 
of Naples often walks. She has very brilliant eyes 
and an exquisite pale complexion. She is usually 
accompanied by her two daughters, less attractive 
than herself, never by her husband. About one 
o'clock the family successively — the husband, the 
wife, the son, already through with his studies and 
a gentleman of leisure — return to breakfast. A 
Neapolitan breakfast is a very small affair — a little 
macaroni cooked with tomatoes, and the cold meat 
that is always served at a sideboard. Then a 
siesta. At five o'clock the carriage is at the door. 
Whether the dinner is more abundant than the 
breakfast I cannot say. In the evening everyone 
goes out to the theatre or to some social affair, re- 
turning shortly after midnight. 

I am surprised to hear the baron lament so often 
that he has land in the Vesuvian region. It is a 
fine country from here to- Caserta. Nothing could 
be more fertile. It bears five crops annually, not 
counting the vintage from vines which run over 
the ground on green and red arches from tree to 
tree. Labour is extremely cheap. I am told, how- 
ever, that the farmer never miakes money, and 



184 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

often cannot even pay his rent. " I have lived in 
Naples thirty years," says my informant, " and I 
have constantly observed this, but the reason for it 
I have never been able to discover." My baron 
may be land-poor, then, with taxes that he must 
pay, and rents that he is not sure of receiving 
regularly; but I scarcely believe this. 

However it may be, he belongs de jure and de 
facto to this Neapolitan aristocracy, which is cor- 
dial and agreeable, and is always generous, even 
when in financial difficulties. As the Neapolitan 
populace have exactly these same traits, plus pov- 
erty and minus culture, it results that the city is the 
most generally pleasing in all Italy. It is also the 
one where life is truly most simple, least hampered 
by conventionalities. Everybody meets every- 
body, everybody leads in some degree a kind of 
outdoor life, and a certain free and easy condition 
of things is the result. Do you think, for instance, 
there is any other city where you would meet, as 
I did here, at ten o'clock in the morning, in one of 
the handsomest and most crowded streets, a flock 
of turkeys driven to sell from door to door, or 
would see, as I have seen, an old lieutenant in full 
uniform selecting and bargaining for a wash-basin 
in the open street, and this without attracting any 
attention from the passers-by? 

I ask myself whether Naples may not be in dan- 
ger of losing in some degree the popular character 
of her aspect and the freedom of her ways. So 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 185 

much simplicity and naivete arise from the fact 
that her fishermen, her sellers of frutti de mare, her 
makers of pizza and of fireworks, her vendors of 
boiled chestnuts, and many of her artisans, live in 
quarters which are protected by their extreme pov- 
erty against city ordinances — a kind of shadow 
where colours are kept intact. The population 
which lives in this way in parts of the city entirely 
given up to it being so much the more numerous, 
inevitably imposes somewhat of its own habits 
of life upon the class whom education renders 
vastly its superior. But the old quarters are dis- 
appearing. Immense municipal improvements are 
going on. One great work is the completion of 
the old system of sewerage, carrying the conduits 
by way of Posilipo out to- the Bay of Gaeta; an- 
other is the cutting of new streets and boulevards 
through — or rather the carrying them over — many 
of the slums in the lower part of the town, which 
are to be filled in and completely obliterated. This 
is called by the authorities the resanimento, but the 
populace call it the sventramento, of Naples. The 
Government and the municipality together, shar- 
ing equally the expense, have already employed 
100,000,000 lire [$20,000,000] in this work. 

In the two years since I was last in Naples the 
improvement has been great. The broad avenues, 
beginning midway of the hill, have extended so far 
that they seem likely before long to reach to the 
Bay. What do the poor people down there in the 



186 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

low ground think of this? What becomes of them 
when their wretched houses are destroyed? What 
will remain of those quarters made famous by their 
poverty, so well described by Fucini in his letters? 
To answer these questions one must penetrate the 
ill-famed, malodorous, ill-ventilated, unwholesome 
region of the Porto. But it is difficult to go there 
alone. Though there is no serious danger, or at 
least no more than that of leaving behind one a 
watch or a port-monnaie, it is really not possible 
to visit these fondachi and their lanes unless ac- 
companied and guided by someone w r ho knows the 
place, and, if possible, is a persona grata. 

So I made known my wishes to one of my Nea- 
politan friends, and was extremely successful. 
" You shall be guided/' he said, " by a person who 
has authority in this kingdom where the police 
themselves are often powerless." And at the hour 
and place agreed upon, near the Porto, I found 
awaiting me a man of lofty stature and attractive 
appearance, wearing a broad-brimmed soft hat, 
the Cavaliere Antonio d'Auria, a councillor of the 
province of Naples and president of the Central 
Labour Association. He had the air and manner 
of a true leader, and, as I soon perceived, also the 
authority of one. He was not alone. With us 
were to go two newspaper men, my friend, Pro- 
fessor N., and several other persons unknown to 
me, but evidently familiar with the quarter we 
visited. 



SOUTHERN ITALY, 187 

Leaving the street where we had met, we en- 
tered another parallel to the quays. We went in, 
two by two, for the passage was narrow and filthy, 
under an archway, sixty feet long, which gave en- 
trance into a lane. And what a deplorable scene 
of material dilapidation and of human suffering! 
What a spectacle for the stranger coming with the 
illusion of a Naples all gaiety and happy outdoor 
life! Overhead there is but a narrow ribbon of 
blue sky, in part obscured by the rags that flutter 
from the windows; and below, only a slice of in- 
fected air between the houses, with their irregular 
windows and their walls stained with long streaks 
of green mildew. A second archway at the left 
gives access to an inner court, itself very narrow; in 
the centre, a wall, surrounded by heaps of filth and 
black mud. This well furnishes the daily supply 
of water for all the neighbourhood. An outside 
wooden staircase ascends from this inhabited gulf; 
heads appear at the different landings, women and 
children, by no means merry, but pale and weary. 
They look at us anxiously. What are these men 
doing here, these strangers, in this region of hun- 
ger? We are thought to be deputies on some 
errand of inspection. Then one of the tenants 
recognizes Signor d'Auria, and a wan smile comes 
over the faces that just now were defiant. Shortly 
we are surrounded by a crowd of unkempt women, 
half-naked children, men still holding in their 
hands a deck of cards marked with signs whose 



1 88 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY, 

meaning is to me unknown. Our party are saying 
one to another: u This was the place of rendez- 
vous for the fraternity of the mala vita, some years 
ago." " The camorristi met here when they were 
preparing to strike a blow." " Such or such a 
crime was committed in this vlcolo, and the crimi- 
nal has never been discovered." 

We visited, successively; the fondaco Pietralella, 
the fondaco delle Stelle, the fondaco Frcddo, the 
fondaco Verde, the fondaco Santa- Anna. An old 
woman is fanning with a bit of pasteboard the 
fire of a brasero, wherein, in the middle of the 
muddy lane, she is cooking green pine cones, of 
which the seeds are considered edible. She stops 
us as we pass, and asks us to see where 
she lives. Following her, I enter a corridor, and 
after some twenty-five feet of perfect darkness, 
lighting a match, she shows me a sort of hole, win- 
dowless, receiving air and light only from this pas- 
sageway. " I pay three lire [60 cents] a month 
for this," she says. I am struck with the old 
woman's pitiable condition, and am about to 
empty my purse into her hands when my com- 
panion whispers: " Take care! We should never 
get out of here." And, indeed, the rumour of our 
presence has already spread all through the 
quarter, and the crowd grows thick about us. 
Our slightest gesture is observed. If we seem 
about to give, all arms are stretched out. 

We clamber into an entresol, where five little chil- 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 189 

dren lie asleep on a bed and the mother is combing 
her hair. There is no table, and, indeed, no other 
furniture than the bed except one chair. On the 
floor is a saucepan and a spoon. Across the chair 
lies a pink fichu of some light woollen material, 
which the mother will put on, probably, when she 
goes out for her day's work in some family of the 
town just beneath. As we pass near a window of 
the ground floor my neighbour says, "Look!" 
And he adds, though the thing is easy to see: "Sono 
delle donne di male affari." With a glance I ex- 
plore the low room, where several women of repul- 
sive aspect and in ragged clothing, lounging in 
chairs or on a packing case with a canvas cover, 
watch us as we go by. At the back of the room 
a small lamp is burning before — yes, before a 
print of the Virgin pasted upon the wall! Nor is 
it an isolated instance. Even in these wretched 
creatures the Neapolitan piety still lives; abject as 
they are, they still look to> the Madonna for deliver- 
ance, and the lamp burns testifying to this hope. 
" Now, look up there," says Signer d'Auria. 
He points out the dismantled buildings that close 
this blind alley in which we are — the yawning 
chasms in the walls, the windows without case- 
ments, the heaps of laths which, falling from 
above, have caught on some projecting beam. 
The tenants have moved out. On a level with the 
fourth floor a street is advancing, as broad as a 
whole block of these ancient buildings. It ex- 



190 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

tends two heavy beams, like rails, above the shat- 
tered partitions. It is completed almost to the 
edge of the mass of ruins. The white outlines of 
its new houses rise against the sky, and still fur- 
ther diminish the daylight in this fondaco, which 
is destined soon to disappear. 

This is the new city, threatening, impending, 
which at no distant day will have buried beneath 
it the debris of these barracks of humble life, 
where so many generations have lived and suffered, 
have left this world with inconceivable regret; 
where there have been gloomy dramas, despairing 
deeds, lives of mysterious wickedness, and also 
acts of self-devotion and charity forever unknown, 
innocent loves and brief joys; and, at least now 
and then, a few notes of life's sweetest song. And 
all is now to perish ! 

Emerging from these frightful slums, we trav- 
erse streets and squares which are, as a rule, un- 
known to the admirers of the Bay. I mean the 
streets and squares of which the small tradesmen 
have taken entire possession, transforming them 
into a public bazaar. Fish, fruit, household im- 
plements of every kind, are in heaps upon the pave- 
ment. No carriage would try to» make its way 
here. In the open air furnaces smoke, over which 
are cooking the primitive dishes of the Neapolitan 
ordinary — macaroni in oil, pizza, chestnuts, little 
fried mullets. Nor are the shoe-dealers and the 
old-iron vendors infrequent here. 



SO UTHERN ITAL Y. 191 

Purchasers in crowds are moving about among 
the stalls, but as you watch them closely you ob- 
serve that there are not more than a score of cus- 
tomers to each vendor. As a matter of fact, the 
people who carry on this little traffic depend ex- 
clusively for patronage upon their near neighbours. 
Half of the tenants in a court will be the customers 
of one man. There ar& established reputations 
here and lines of custom. Nobody can fry pepper- 
pods like this fat old woman; nobody tells for- 
tunes so well as this girl, who- also sells tickets in 
an unauthorized lottery, while openly offering for 
sale only woollen waistcoats and shawls of brilliant 
hue. 

This fact is to be borne in mind in judging of the 
resanimento. As I walked along with my com- 
panions another thing attracted my notice. Once, 
twice, five times, ten times, the leader of our party 
is accosted, detained, implored, by people begging 
him to see that they have their rights. Now it is 
a pretty girl with hair in a pointed knot and with 
tragic mien, who grasps him boldly by the arm. 
" Signor Councillor, please to look here! I was 
selling my Indian figs when the questurini came. 
They took away my cart! They say I have no 
right to sell in the street ! The villains! You must 
help me!" Whereupon the Signor Councillor 
obligingly tackles the policeman on the subject of 
the pretty fig-girl. Or it is a man, who pulls him 
into a corner and recites the story of his griev- 



I9 2 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

ance; and Signor d'Auria promises to see the 
judge. Then comes a woman running, followed 
by three or four children and the old mother, who 
can hardly walk. " Signor Councillor, isn't this 
horrible? They have turned us out of the house! 
They will not let us stay any longer on account of 
the new street that is coming in. But the street 
has not got here yet; and where can we go to 
sleep to-night? They have fastened up our doors, 
and we cannot get in. Oh, the wicked law, that 
is made against us poor people! " She talks in a 
loud voice, and gesticulates, so that the passers-by 
stop to listen, and a crowd collects. They fill the 
lane in which we are and clamour with her against 
the authorities. 

We are quite surrounded, and Signor d'Auria, 
who can be seen and heard above all heads, stand- 
ing with his back to a half-demolished wall, makes 
an address. He explains the necessity of the work 
and its future benefits to all, and recommends pa- 
tience with present inconveniences. It is evident 
that he is much beloved. The group disperses, 
and we are left alone, except for the woman, 
who keeps on talking for a while in a lower voice, 
and then also goes away, apparently quite sat- 
isfied. 

" You see," says Signor d'Auria, " I have my 
hands full. I come here every day, and there is 
always something requiring attention." 

" Are these your constituents? " 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 193 

" Oh, no! Most of these people cannot read or 
write, and very few pay the five-lire tax." 

" But how do you settle these cases? For in- 
stance, this woman turned out of doors — did you 
provide her with a night's lodging? " 

" Oh, no! But I can always help them with a 
little money. I beg from my friends, and matters 
can generally be arranged. Our Neapolitan peo- 
ple are so resigned, so easy-tempered. You saw 
her; she went away smiling. The poor find 
it hard to get anyone to listen to them. Lawyers 
and officials and the policemen will scarcely ever 
let them say a word. You see, I listen, and that 
makes them like me so well." 

We made our way up, through many round- 
about ways, across the ruins, toward the quarters 
whose extension is to swallow up the regions we 
have just visited. I am told about the last cholera 
season in Naples. 

" It was a fact, signor, that in these houses over 
the ruins of which we are now walking, and in 
these fondachi which you have just now visited, 
there were more than a thousand deaths a day. 
Very early the epidemic became violent, and you 
would never guess how this happened! It was the 
lottery, signor, that claused it. You know, the 
passion of the Neapolitans is for the lotto! You 
know, also, that they have a preference for cer- 
tain numbers, especially those which they call the 
Madonna's figures — 8, 13, and 84. Now, on the 



194 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

last day of August, 1884, the ambo of the Madonna 
was drawn. All the poor in Naples rejoiced. Each 
man got his ten, fifteen, or twenty lire; and the 
day being Sunday, you should have seen this 
starved and thirsty multitude eat and drink! 
The restaurants and taverns were crowded from 
morning till night. The sellers of melons and 
sherbets had nothing left; and the following day, 
Monday, the cholera, which had been very light, 
suddenly became severe, with 350 fatal results." 

Evidently all these lanes and alleys, these pesti- 
lential courts which we have just visited, merit no 
regrets; and the idea of throwing new streets over 
these quarters is not in itself a bad one — quite 
the contrary. But these new avenues which we saw 
from below, and in which we are now walking, 
have one serious fault. It had been already men- 
tioned to me, but it grows clearer as I see them 
more closely. They are bordered with palaces, with 
very grand houses built for the rich, and, by the 
way, are not, as yet, all provided with tenants! 
There has been a wholesale destruction of houses 
for the poor, and nothing substituted in their 
place. This is the evil; here we have the cause of 
the great disturbance caused by the resanimento in 
this w r orld of poverty and hunger. These poor 
creatures, driven out of their unwholsome lairs, 
are not able to pay the higher prices in the tene- 
ment-houses for the working class which have 
been built, and still less able because, the new r 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 19S 

buildings being on the very outskirts of the city, 
these poor people would find themselves com- 
pletely in exile there, losing the custom of their 
fifteen, twenty, or hundred neighbours, upon 
which their prosperity depended. The crisis is 
very serious. " Besides/' my companion added, 
" in the new quarters, as you will see, the houses 
are all to be filled with these little vendors and arti- 
sans, as the houses in this quarter will all be taken 
by people in easy circumstances. Now, the old 
quarters of the city, even these which you have 
just visited, are not all occupied by people of one 
class. In these very lanes of the Porto, behind 
their sombre walls, there still live people of the 
mercantile class, dealers in silk and woollens and 
cottons, and owners of fishing-boats. These an- 
cient ties of neighbourhood, very helpful to the 
poor, offering them their best chance of being 
known and assisted, are now to be all broken. 
Hence, Naples complains." 

Whereupon I reflected that our fashion of build- 
ing cities might, indeed, be finer in arrangement 
and more beautiful than in former times; but that 
it was certainly less fraternal. 

Signor d'Auria left us here, returning into the 
Porto, and only some of our party went, in two 
carriages, to visit the artisan quarters. I will de- 
scribe only one of these — Santa-Anna alle Paliidi, 
built on waste ground and gardens beyond the 
railway station. Its aspect is very commonplace — 



I9 6 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

broad streets, which intersect each other at right 
angles, bordered with huge angular buildings, 
much as in Rome. I notice only two original 
things: there are garlands of colocynths at the 
shop-doors, tomatoes in clusters drying along the 
walls, frying going on in the open air, an odour of 
oil, heaps of shawls of that bright rose-pink be- 
loved by the ragazze, a general effect transferred 
hither from the old quarters; and, secondly, the 
porte-cocheres of these new buildings. How is it 
possible to build houses like these, with entrances 
so handsome, for the Neapolitan labouring classes! 
And what rent can they be expected to pay? 

One of our party lifts the knocker at a fine 
broad door, belonging to a sort of palace in four 
stories. The concierge comes to us through a 
paved vestibule, very neatly kept. Opposite is a 
square staircase, all in granite. At the left a glazed 
door opens upon a great court, entirely surrounded 
by buildings. We go up as far as the third story, 
to have an idea of the medium apartments in this 
new quarter. The building can accommodate 
thirty-three families. The first apartment that we 
visit consists of three rooms, and is occupied by 
four sisters, of whom one has two* children. They 
receive us very willingly on being told that I am 
a stranger, interested in seeing everything in 
Naples. The rooms were in perfect order; the 
white walls much decorated with prints or framed 
photographs. In the kitchen a gray turkey was 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 197 

walking about under the table, and two top-knot 
pigeons cooed from the window-ledge. 

" How much do you pay, signora, for this nice 
apartment? " 

" Twenty-six lire [$5.20] a month." 

" And you are very well suited with it? " 

" Perfectly. Our neighbours have only two 
rooms, but they pay less — seventeen lire.'' 

The right-hand neighbour has no turkey, but he 
keeps a hen. He is an old journeyman cabinet- 
maker, who is not employed by the nobility or the 
bank. He assures us that he has no> fault to* find 
with the lodgings, and also that his hen gives him 
an egg every day. The third household is quite 
young, and the handsome girl who shows us the 
apartment does not need to> be asked whether she 
is content. This appears from the smile she gives 
us, from the coral hair-pin stuck proudly in her 
crisped hair; also from the absence of turkey, 
pigeon, or hen. Her man is in the city, and will 
presently come home. He is a htstroscarpe — a 
bootblack — she tells us. 

Upon the whole, the apartments are good, but 
the price can suit only those who have money 
saved up, or the very young, who postpone their 
saving to some later day. The real poor, who are 
driven out of the Porto, can find no shelter here. 
And I have no< idea what is to become of them in 
such a cruel moment. 

Strangers who go to see the Grotto del Cane 



198 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

will never forget a visit to the Vicaria, if the happy 
thought occurs to them of making it. The place 
is nearer, and it is more amusing. The street lead- 
ing to the courthouse is called, naturally enough, 
the via del Tribunale. It has always been long, 
narrow, abounding in shops, and crowded with 
dwellings; but it is less exclusive now than for- 
merly, and one no longer sees on the walls of the 
Hospital della Pace this inscription, so amusingly 
worded: In questa via, non possono habitare ne mere- 
trici, ne soldati, ne studenti, ne simili genti — " In this 
street may dwell neither fdles de joie, nor soldiers, 
nor students, nor people of that sort." The stone 
on which these words were cut is in the Museum of 
San Martino, and the spirit which dictated them — 
how far away that is from the times in which we 
live! 

A young Neapolitan lawyer is my guide. " We 
are about three thousand here," he tells me, " who 
may use the name, but happily we do not all 
practise. The palace is getting noisy already. 
Listen !" 

It is half-past twelve, and many are hastening 
in, like ourselves, under the porticoes of the damp, 
sombre old building, shored up on every side, and 
full of the buzzing of a crowd. We also go up the 
well-worn stone stairs, at the top of which is a 
passageway with a lunch counter. Here advocates 
and clerks and amateurs buy the sandwich, the 
bit of cheese, the dried fruit, or the sweet lemon, 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 199 

and the cigar, hard and black as ebony, which 
make it possible to spend the whole day in the 
courtroom. At the left is the Court of Appeals; 
at the right the civil tribunal, with its eleven 
rooms. 

We go to the left, and enter the outer hall, the 
Salone of the court, where a crowd of people are 
moving about, who accost one another, embrace, 
talk together in loud tones, finish what they had 
to say with a gesture or two, then separate; and, 
shortly, meet other acquaintances. There are 
many men here who have business, and there are 
advocates with cases, of course, but also, as my 
friend explains, there are many dilettanti. All this 
crowd fills the centre of the hall, whose sides be- 
long to the discreet and silent gentry of the pen. 
Along the walls, between the doors which give 
access to the various courtrooms, lawyers' clerks, 
seated at both sides of enormous tables, prepare 
writs and motions. Three or four of these tables, 
at intervals, are let to a tobacco seller. 

At the end of the hall is a bench where are 
seated, crowded together, talking with tragic ex- 
pressions of face, several women who* are awaiting 
the result of a case; among them two- with their 
babies in their arms; Neapolitans of the country, 
stout-waisted in their red corsets, with brown 
faces, the eye hard and a little wild-looking. Per- 
haps they are relatives of this Palmieri whose case 
is now called out. It takes so little to bring a 



200 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

black cloud into these southern eyes! Palmieri 
comes before the Tenth Correctional Chamber. 
He is accused of having interfered with the Gov- 
ernment by establishing a clandestine lottery — an 
offence which is very common in this part of the 
country — and having thus obtained 35 lire 
[$7]. The hall, formerly an office in the vice- 
regal palace, is filled with an audience evidently 
friendly to the accused; they reluctantly make 
way for the passage of the officer, and do not com- 
pletely obey his reiterated calls for " Silence! " 
The unlucky prosecuting officer vainly calls for his 
witnesses. Two out of three are not present. He 
goes to the door opening into the great hall, and 
over the crowd, the moving human mass, he again 
cries out the names at the top of his voice. There 
is no reply, and he comes back shrugging his 
shoulders, as if to say, " One more non-appear- 
ance! " The judge is not surprised. He knows his 
Neapolitans well; they are most unwilling to tes- 
tify against an unlucky neighbour; leaning forward 
over his desk, his hair streaming backward under 
his velvet cap, which is as flat as a beretta, he 
does no more than glance at his colleague on the 
right, and then at his colleague on the left. The 
two assistants, dressed like the presiding judge, 
in black robes with a silver knot on the shoulder, 
seem to reply " Amen " with their tight-shut lips. 
Then the accused is allowed to speak — a slim, 
stylish young fellow, in a short brown coat, who 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 201 

comes forward almost to the judges' seat, and be- 
gins to defend himself without the least emotion. 
You would think him a lawyer with ten years' 
experience and pleading another man's case, so 
well pitched is his voice, so fluent his language, so 
happy his gestures. He stops a moment between 
his sentences, and from time to- time he turns 
round as if to derive an argument from the non- 
appearance of the witnesses for the prosecution. 

I leave him to finish, and make my way through 
the different courtrooms, where there is the same 
crowd, the same informality, and manifestly the 
same familiarity between the judges on the one 
hand and the advocates, witnesses, and lookers-on 
on the other. Many of these halls of justice are 
filled with people talking idly together as in any 
public room. 

" We used to have here in Naples a brother 
lawyer," said my companion, as we went down- 
stairs together, " who gained many cases, not by 
any talent that he had, but because he was known 
to be a jettatore" 

" It is still believed in, then, this jettatura? " 

" More than is generally admitted. In one of 
the courtrooms that you have just visited not long 
ago there occurred an amusing thing. The advo- 
cate of whom I speak, who had the evil eye, was 
dreaded by all his brethren of the profession, but 
especially by one of the civil judges. On one oc- 
casion, as the jettatore was preparing for an im- 



202 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

portant case, the lawyer on the other side suddenly 
died. There was a very distressing impression 
produced by this event. ' Did you know/ people 
said to each other, ' that So-and-so had accepted 
a case against the jettatore, and now he is dead.* 

" Someone was at last found to take the vacant 
place. The case was again appointed for a certain 
day. Before the day arrived, by bad luck, again 
the opponent of the jettatore died, this time by an 
accident. There was a panic. Not a person was 
willing to take the case; and a third lawyer, ap- 
pointed by the court, stayed away when the day 
came. The judge was alone in the presence of the 
jettatore, and he was the more dismayed because 
he had prepared his decision in advance, and it 
was unfavourable to this formidable person. As he 
sat down in his judicial armchair, he uncon- 
sciously had pushed his spectacles up over his fore- 
head. ' I am blind! ' he cried in terror. ' Pardon 
me, So-and-so; I have done you no injury! ' And, 
at the moment, his glasses dropping back into 
their place: ' Oh, I beg your pardon, my friend! ' 
he hastened to say, ' I have got my sight again/ 
This story, in the legal world of Naples, provoked 
a long and loud burst of laughter. But the jetta- 
tore was only the more dreaded. At last he fell ill, 
and even-body prayed for his death. And when it 
was represented to people what a wrong thing it 
h one's neighbour dead, they said: ' Oh, 
he is not a man at all; he is a jettatore/ " 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 203 

" And how does this begin? In what way is the 
evil eye first recognized? " 

" By its effects, which are infinitely varied, but 
always harmful. For instance, at a reception a 
guest enters, and at the same moment another, 
who is taking tea, drops his cup and it is broken. 
This coincidence is observed. Later in the even- 
ing the same gentleman, hearing someone say that 
such a person was dead, cries thoughtlessly: ' Why, 
that can't be! I was with him this very morning! ' 
You may well suppose that from this time onward 
prudent people will begin to. avoid a man who 
passes his morning with someone who is dead be- 
fore night, and that a few more such things will 
make a very black reputation." 

" And an indelible one? " 

" Oh, certainly! Once a jettatore, always a jetta- 
tore. The years in no way impair the malignity of 
his eye. Nor is this superstition a privilege pecu- 
liar to Naples. You will meet it everywhere in 
Italy. I know a man of the highest fashion, a 
member of one of the first clubs in Rome; when 
it is understood that he is to breakfast at the club, 
the dining room has rarely any other guest than 
himself. Members who have given in their names 
for the meal prefer to pay twice for their break- 
fast, and go to a restaurant rather than have it 
in such a dangerous neighbourhood. I might 
name a lady of the same social rank, who, at court 
balls, generally remains alone on her bench, unless 



204 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY, 

the foreign colonies are largely represented. In 
that case, some Englishwoman or some German 
will take a seat beside the jettatrice, not knowing 
the story, and the isolation is for the moment 
relieved. But I confess that at Naples the South- 
ern temperament brings stories of this kind 
to a higher pitch of the comic. I could tell 
you many instances. Here is one that hap- 
pened to the Conte di C, who died the other 
day. Everybody feared him, just as now, here 
in Naples, everybody fears the person who is 
spoken of as i the innomabile ' and ' the formida- 
bile '; but nothing equalled the terror of the Duke 
de M., whenever he found himself in the presence 
of his cousin. The evil eye was so strong in the 
Conte di C. that coral horns, ostensibly worn as 
a watch charm, or the hand upon a key — powerful 
means of defence in general — could not prevent 
disasters from falling thick as hail on people who 
came near him. It is impossible always to avoid a 
person, however; and one day, on the sidewalk, 
coming around a corner, the duke met his cousin 
face to face. t Come sta? ' cried the count. ' Take 
my arm, cousin; I was just going to your house.' 
The other turned pale, but there was no escape. 
Did he grow suddenly faint, or did he slip on a bit 
of melon-peel? This has never been known; but, 
at the end of one street, the duke in some way fell, 
and he broke his leg. Then his Neapolitan pru- 
dence got the upper hand, and, injured as he was, 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 205 

he had the strength to whisper in his formidable 
cousin's ear this pretty patois sentence: ' Grazie, 
perche tu me putire accidere, e te si cuntentate de 
m'arrninare! ' — 'Thanks! You might have killed 
me, and you have only broken my leg! ' " 

It may be said that in literature there is a Nea- 
politan school, or at least a South Italian school, 
in which Naples holds the chief place. She has 
always had her singers of Piedigrotta, the merry 
band who annually compose, for the great festa, the 
popular songs on which the townspeople will live 
for the coming year. 

The compositions accepted for this occasion are 
not all of equal merit ; many die and are forgotten, 
having had but one edition, at ten centesimi, sold 
at the street corners. But I feel that these poets 
keep up the tradition, and that to their verses we 
owe the novels so popular and so original, with 
so much local colour, to which I have already 
alluded. The literary public of France is always 
ready to welcome and enjoy works like those of 
Signora Mathilda Serrao, in which there is much 
life, much love for the humble Neapolitans, and a 
knowledge so> accurate, so far as a stranger can 
judge, of their manners and ways of thought and 
speech. The Paese di Cuccagna, the last novel of 
hers with which I am familiar, dealing with that 
great passion of the community, that source of so 
many dramas, the lottery, better explains the Nea- 



206 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

politan temperament and gives more information 
as to local customs than could very frequent visits 
to the fine hotels of the Chiaja. The same is true 
of Salvatore di Giaeomo, whose Mattinate napole- 
tane have had a very legitimate success. These are 
short stories, written in this sad under-world of 
Naples, by a clever author: Valite o Vassilo? 
a sick child whose mother, a poor woman, has had 
his portrait painted, and the subsequent event of 
his death; Serafina, a scene in a hospital; a girl 
wounded with five stabs is undergoing an opera- 
tion upstairs, while her poor old father at the 
gate is telling the porter how she fled, shamefully, 
one night from her home; VAbbandonato, the baby 
with only his grandmother, who, about to die 
alone in a cellar of the fondachi that I have de- 
scribed, lays him, sound asleep, on the upper step 
of the stairs, that her poor comrades may see him 
when they return; the charming story of the two 
friends, The Canary and the Dove; and especially 
that admirable little drama, Senza vederlo, in which 
a widow, Carmela, goes to ask from the Secretary 
of the Albergo dei Poveri the favour of seeing her 
child, and to whom no one is willing to acknowl- 
edge that he is dead and forgotten. It is incredi- 
ble how much emotion, how much human pity the 
author has been able to embody in these twelve 
stories in a duodecimo volume. 1 Verga, another 

1 Among other works of his may be mentioned Rosa Bellavita, 
and a dialect poem 'O Munastcro. 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 207 

Neapolitan author, lacks this very elegant con- 
ciseness. His style has, however, a Sicilian colour, 
very marked, perhaps even extravagant at times. 
Many of his novelle, especially the first, Nedda, and 
his Vita dei Canipe, are beautiful, heartrending 
tales of Sicilian poverty. 

And the sum of all this reading, the impression 
made by these books, is that the reputation for mad 
revelry which Naples has is, in part, unfounded; 
instead of the legendary boatman, picturesque 
of costume, tuneful of voice, there is a pathetic fig- 
ure who suffers and weeps. The charm of this verse 
or prose which tells the story of common life 
arises, therefore, from a pity, very deep at heart, 
but almost always veiled in expression, and from 
the precious faculty of thinking and speaking in 
the language of the poor. 

In Calabria. 
It was my desire to revisit ^Etna; and being 
familiar with the sea-route, I decided to go> by 
land. We pass through Salerno, then cross the 
mountains to Metaponto on the Bay of Taranto, 
and from there, turning at right angles, follow the 
Calabrian coast down to- the tip of the boot at 
Reggio. There is but one train a day, and it is a 
journey of twenty hours. We lerve Naples at 2.10 
p. m., reaching the Straits of Messina the next 
morning at about ten o'clock. The journey is 
fatiguing, with long stops during the night among 



208 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

the mountains; and this railway, which has cost 
enormously, — 600,000,000 [$120,000,000], it is as- 
serted, — will be of very little value when the new 
road from Naples to Reggio is completed. This 
line leaves the old route below Salerno, and coasts 
the Mediterranean almost all the way. The sav- 
ing of time will be very important. Steamers 
crossing the Straits connect with the trains, and 
the point for the new line of connection will proba- 
bly be no longer Reggio, but Villa San Giovanni. 
It is said, even, that the train itself will be sent 
across on barges, and go on from Messina by a 
route, also new, following the north shore of the 
island, and shortening by a third the distance from 
Messina to Palermo. 

The Italians of the southern provinces are glad 
to talk of these schemes as of a tardy favour 
granted to the South, and they tell you, also, that 
these are not the only public works going on in 
this long-neglected region; an immense arsenal is 
nearly completed at Taranto, and there is a plan 
for carrying the waters of the river Sele into 
Apulia. This is, by the way, an interesting 
scheme. The provinces of Foggia and Bari, with 
the port of Barletta, the principal market for 
Italian wines, are almost destitute of running 
water. Agriculture suffers from this, and espe- 
cially the public health, for the inhabitants have 
only cistern water to drink; and this, in the sum- 
mer, the stagnant residue of earlier rains, is sold at 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 209 

an unreasonable price. An Italian engineer, Si- 
gnor Zampani, proposes to take at Caposele a part 
of the water which now flows to the Mediterra- 
nean, and constructing an aqueduct — a grander 
work, perhaps, than the Roman aqueducts — and 
tunnelling the Apennines for over a mile, carry it 
across to the valley of Ofanto on the Adriatic 
slope, whence, by many secondary channels, it can 
be distributed to the large number of cities and 
villages that require it. The estimated expense 
would exceed 100,000,000 [$20,000,000], and it is 
hoped to enlist English capital in the enter- 
prise. Obstacles of all kinds are in the way, and 
the project is as yet only a dream, but of the 
boldest kind and well adapted to excite public 
interest. 

I return to my railway journey. On such a long 
route one is fortunate if he finds agreeable com- 
pany. We hesitated a while, then selected a com- 
partment where three persons were already seated 
— one with harsh but intelligent face, black, 
drooping moustache, and travel-stained garments, 
seemingly a man from some remote country; 
the second, a jovial rotund face, with gray mous- 
tache a la Victor Emanuel, the hair almost white 
and very thick, a big coral pin in the scarf, at the 
watch-chain a horn against the evil eye, the type of 
a soldier, the father of a family, and the father of 
his men; the third, a gentleman extremely elegant, 
very young, dark, long-faced, and carrying, in the 



210 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

upper pocket of his waistcoat, a pencil attached to 
a fine gold chain. 

At first we are almost silent ; we look occasion- 
ally at the landscape. It is delicious near Vesu- 
vius, as everybody knows. The valley, even beyond 
Pompeii, where we lose sight of the Bay, is 
extremely fertile, and I admire the luxuriant bean- 
fields quite as much as the blue distance; then 
there are low hills between which we pass, then 
we arrive at Salerno, so surprising, so royally 
beautiful, as we emerge from a tunnel — this view 
of the city lying in a semicircle at the foot of a 
huge slope, with its white houses, its red roofs, its 
harbour and jetties, the flank of the promontory 
through which the tunnel is cut and over which 
lies the zigzag road to Amalfi, and last, the sea, 
without a wrinkle, misty with excess of light, its 
horizon effaced by the sunset. After this the road 
rises again, leaving the grassy plain where Paes- 
tum was, and we enter the mountain country. At 
the little stations the men who are waiting for the 
train often wear the Calabrian cap, and the women 
have the short red petticoat, the warm pallor, and 
the long eyes of the Orient. Many carry their 
children wrapped and tied up in coloured cloths; 
at Eboli I counted three of these little blue pack- 
ages and two yellow ones. There are for sale 
buffalo-cheeses, round and varnished like colo- 
cynths, and oranges with their leaves. And so 
evening comes on. 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 211 

We had not waited so long as this before mak- 
ing some acquaintance with two of our travelling 
companions. The slender young man is a land- 
owner in the Basilicate; the older man with the 
Victor Emanuel moustache is an infantry officer 
on his way to Taranto; the third traveller remains 
silent and motionless in his corner. 

Between the major and the landowner conver- 
sation soon began upon the condition of things in 
Southern Italy. Both, in their several ways, de- 
plored the present situation in the Basilicate and in 
Calabria. 

" You see," the major remarked, " everywhere 
land lying fallow, hill-slopes channelled out by the 
rains." 

And, in fact, we did see nothing but hills, and in 
the last gleams of daylight, their tops almost 
always stony, and without a trace of cultivated 
fields or plantations of trees. 

" The fault is in the deplorable management of 
our forests," said the civilian. " For a very long 
time the peasants have been allowed to cut down 
the trees and shrubs at will. They have destroyed 
without restoring. The belt of trees has been pro- 
gressively narrowed on many of the mountains, 
and finally has disappeared. Then the earth has 
been washed away, undermined by rains. Now we 
have a law, within the past four years, which pro- 
vides for replanting. But it comes somewhat 
late! " 



212 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

" There are many other causes, signor. Here 
are great extents of country, which might be cul- 
tivated and populous, ridenti di persone. But to 
whom do they belong? You know better than I 
do; two-thirds of Calabria is in the hands of a 
score of barons " 

" And so it should be! They have bought it, or 
they have inherited it." 

" I don't say they have not. The result is no 
less deplorable. Most of these are contented to 
let their flocks roam over these tenute. The land 
not being heavily taxed, since it is considered to 
be of a very poor kind, their revenue is enough. I 
am ready to admit that they are excusable in let- 
ting a state of things go on which they did not 
themselves create. You will agree, however, that 
the condition of the labouring classes is pitiable in 
the extreme." 

" Certainly it is." 

"Wages of 1.25 [25 cents], sometimes as little 
as 85 centesimi [17 cents], for thirteen ho>urs of 
labour; boiled herbs and black bread for food; 1 if 
they desire to become farmers, and try for a little 
prosperity, usury dogs them, and will have five per 
cent., or ten, by the week. Then what do they 
do? They emigrate." 

" Yes, they emigrate, Signor Major; but I 

1 These figures are also given in the pamphlet of F. Nitti, Emu 
grazione italiana e i suoi avversarii. Naples, Roux. 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 213 

doubt if they do much better elsewhere. Emigra- 
tion is an Italian scourge." 

A clear, distinct voice at this point interrupted: 

"It is. a wealth!" 

In his corner, half lighted by the little lamp in 
the ceiling, the third traveller was leaning forward, 
and looking at his two neighbours with that harsh 
expression, without any glimmer of a conventional 
smile, without the least conciliation toward one's 
adversary, which marks the man of the lower 
classes. Nevertheless, he was dressed like a well- 
to-do townsman. 

The young man bent toward him politely, so 
far as to bring his head under the carriage lamp, 
which made a halo for his hair. 

" I do not understand you," he said — " a wealth? 
You maintain that when, for example, in 1886, 
Italy lost more than eighty thousand of her inhab- 
itants to America alone, she was enriched by it? " 

" Yes; we had an excess of population at home. 
If we use it in colonizing, and so Italianize a part 
of America, what objection is there to that? It at 
least makes us more influential. Many of our peo- 
ple are doing well in the Argentine Republic, in 
Brazil, and elsewhere. They gain their living, as 
I know myself! " 

" Have you become an American? " 

" I have; for the last three years I have been the 
manager of an estate in Buenos Ayres; and I am 
here now to take my family out." 



214 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

" You had left them here? " 

11 Yes; the journey was expensive." 

"And when you have made your fortune, you 
propose to come back some day? ,? 

The emigrant remained silent for a moment; 
then, no doubt, he decided that he was American 
enough already to tell the whole story: 

M I think not," he said. 

" Yen" well! For my part," rejoined the young 
man, throwing himself back in his corner disdain- 
fully, u if I were the Government, I should pro- 
hibit emigration by every means in my power; I 
should lay a tax upon the emigrant. You will 
never make me believe that it is well to depopu- 
late one country in the interest of another. I 
know villages in Calabria which have lost in cer- 
tain years a hundred inhabitants." 

The emigrant was displeased. His eyes glit- 
tered; he shrugged his shoulders. 

" It is a harm to Calabria/' he said; " but it is 
good for Italy. Besides, I had tried to gain a liv- 
ing here in this country; and there was none to be 
gained." 

He drew back into his corner as if decided to 
say no more; and, shortly after, he alighted on the 
deserted platform of a station swept by the icy 
wind which blew from out a ravine. My thought 
followed him in the darkness on his way to one 
of those hill-tops which we had observed from 
point to point, crowned with houses bound to- 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 215 

gether and crowded close by ruinous old ramparts. 
Possibly he could not reach home till nearly day- 
light, making long circuits caused by the torrent 
which roared at the right. Perhaps the village was 
one of those whose inhabitants I had seen danc- 
ing the tarantella so gravely in their fine costumes 
of the olden time! I seemed to see him entering 
the bedroom, still darkened, where the cribs had 
not yet begun to cry out, and the joy, mingled 
with alarm, of the wife, to whom this announced 
definitive exile! 

The commandant, whose urbanity and tran- 
quillity this sharp collision between the landowner 
and the emigrant seemed to have discomposed, 
began to explain to me that emigration was in fact 
much more frequent in the South than in the 
North. Among other interesting things, he told 
me that the peasants of the North generally went 
accompanied by their families, expecting in some 
way to get back again, if America proved inhos- 
pitable; while the bracciani of Calabria and the 
Basilicate were accustomed to go alone, to spend 
two or three years in studying the situation and 
finding means for a livelihood; and then return- 
ing, as our late neighbour had done, with money 
enough to bring out the wife, the children, and 
the old people. 

By degrees the major also grew animated. He 
spoke to me — he, a Piedmontese — about this ex- 
treme southern part of Italy, where he felt himself 



216 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

out of his element, humiliated in his patriotic 
pride about so many things. He got up, and stood 
before me as if making a speech, fulminating 
against the luxurious and idle townspeople of 
Potenza, Metaponto, Catanzaro, and other little 
places of local importance. 

" The young men who could do so much for the 
country," he said, " do nothing. When they have 
finished their studies, they come home. Is it to 
improve the condition of the region in which they 
live, or even their own? Not at all. Two thou- 
sand lire [$400] of income suffices them. This 
permits them to act the noble, fare il nobile, to 
salute and to be saluted. They see nothing be- 
yond. Up to the age of twenty-five you will see 
them on all the promenades. Later they will be 
sitting in chairs in their orange groves, and watch- 
ing their labourers dig. My country! I am 
ashamed for her! " 

He went on for a few T minutes in this tone, 
his eyebrows frowning, his voice vibrating with 
emotion. The country, liberty, democracy, the 
young nation, greatness, future — all these im- 
pressive words he grouped in sentences; and 
when he felt that he had effaced the impression 
produced upon us by the detail of the miseries of 
Southern Italy, he appeared satisfied, sat down, 
presently confessed to me that his wife bought 
her things in Paris, at the Printemps; then fell 
asleep. 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 217 

This did not last long. Ten minutes later the 
train, much shaken, and letting off steam on the 
down grades, ran into the station at Metaponto. 
The light of lanterns flashed over faces, each 
framed in its corner. Someone opened the door 
and came in, a young lieutenant of artillery in 
uniform. He knocked against the major's legs, 
which were stretched across to the opposite 
cushion. The excellent man awoke. In such a 
case a Frenchman would have grumbled and given 
way; an Englishman would not have stirred. The 
Italian smiled at the newcomer, withdrew his legs, 
and said courteously, " S'accommodi, s'accommodi! " 
Then, perceiving that this was the station where 
he was to leave the train, he grasped my hand in 
farewell, recommending to me the marvellous 
(stupendo) bouillon that, by chance, was to> be had 
at this Calabrian buffet. The landowner with 
the gold chain also got off here. 

The route now lay close by the sea. The moun- 
tains which we had traversed, heaped up at the 
right, had the same desolate look. They formed 
a near horizon of slopes, rocky or covered with 
meagre thickets. The space, varying in breadth 
from their foot to the line of the railway, presented 
but rarely a little fresh verdure — clusters of reeds 
along a fiumara, whose soil preserved a little 
moisture. More frequently it was an abandoned 
pasture, with black tufts of boxwood here and 
there, or else fields of pale green olive trees planted 



218 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

in rows. No sign of culture, and almost no 
flocks. Dawn came on, and at the left lay the sea 
— a sea without islands and as smooth as glass. 
If it had the least tide, how quickly it would have 
covered the brown sand over which we ran! Ves- 
sels, infrequent like the flocks, slept upon the 
water. After sunrise, they seemed to float upon 
molten metal. But the land received no lustre 
from the sunlight, and remained infinitely sad. 

For nearly two hundred miles the coast is the 
same. I regretted the major's departure, and 
even that of the other two. The young lieuten- 
ant had less character and less erudition, but, like 
most Italian officers, was perfectly courteous. 
When the train stopped at the stations, with a 
row of houses on one side and a row of fishing 
boats on the other, he mentioned the name of the 
place; and he asked me to observe that the 
Calabrian villages were " beginning to come 
down." 

In earlier days they were all perched upon 
heights, fortified, crenellated, like those we had 
noticed here and there among the Apennines. 
The coasts were not secure. The long tradition of 
invasion by people from every land, and the more 
recent dangers from Calabrian brigands, also the 
fear of malaria on the low ground, had grouped 
the inhabitants on defensible hill-tops, and above 
the dangerous atmosphere of the plains. Now all 
new buildings are close to the sea, and the ram- 



SO UTHERN ITAL F. 219 

parts on the hills are falling into ruins. As regards 
malaria, it is neither more nor less than formerly. 
It depends on the exposure, the nature of the soil, 
the direction of the prevailing winds, and on 
many other unknown causes not easily to be 
avoided. 

It must be confessed that even this thin cur- 
rent of talk sufficed to develop a friendly feeling. 
When we parted on the quay at Reggio, the young 
officer to take the steamer and go over into Sicily; 
I to go in search, in the upper part of the town, 
of the fortunate proprietor of a bergamot orchard, 
I felt sincere regret at parting from the stranger. 

" Look at me! " he said. 

" I am looking." 

" To think that, officially, we are enemies! " 

" And obliged to fight each other." 

" No," he rejoined quickly. " It will not last, 
the triplice. We are so naturally on your side! 
Come and see me at X. You will find that many 
of my comrades think as I do. We may be ever so 
loyal, but we have a right to our zvishes. Don't 
you think so? " 

He stepped across the little gangway to the 
steamer. We again saluted, and I have never seen 
him since. 

The Bergamot. 
Here I am, then, in search of Signor Guglielmo, 
or Antonio, or Francesco — no matter what his 



220 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

name is — the owner of the fine orchard. This time 
I will not pass through Reggio without making ac- 
quaintance with the bergamot. Our fathers and 
mothers loved it. It is still used. And it grows 
here exclusively, on a narrow strip of ground 
which begins at Villa San Giovanni above Reggio, 
ending a little below the town at Palizzi. The at- 
tempt has been made to acclimatize it across the 
Straits in Sicily, but it loses its perfume there. 
The fruit requires this hot-house climate, this ex- 
posure on a gentle slope, this earth, the result of 
landslides. 

I find Signor Guglielmo a stout man with small 
sleepy eyes that shine for an instant like flash- 
lights when he talks of business. He really wor- 
ships the bergamot. This is all that I require of 
him; he understands his business. If he shows 
cleverness besides, that is thrown in. And it seems 
he does. We leave the city in a pelting rain. I 
ask him if it will last. He looks over toward Sicily 
whence the wind comes : 

" Cosa di niente" he says, " tempo di Sicila, tempo 
femmineo } che non dura." " This is nothing, Sicilian 
weather, woman's weather, that does not last." 

Over the walls of the orchards which line the 
roads very far out into the country, as at Palermo, 
the varnished leaves of the trees shade hun- 
dreds of yellow oranges. The rain, wetting the 
trees, evaporates in the sunshine and perfumes the 
air. At a rapid trot we pass through this fragrant 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 221 

suburb. The inclosures become more infrequent 
and also the houses. Fields of beans appear on 
both sides of the road, and others of pimento, lift- 
ing up their red pods, which resemble poppies. 

Signor Guglielmo sniffs the air noisily. 

" Bergamot! " he says. 

And there, indeed, a hundred yards in front of 
us, peasants in the Calabrian dress, the men with 
short trousers, the women with red petticoats and 
the great drooping head-dress, are escorting a cart 
loaded with the precious fruit on its way to a mill. 
The cart leaves behind it a perfume so strong that 
it completely overpowers that of the oranges and 
lemons. We are in a bergamot-steam. My host 
seems enraptured. I look into the baskets. They 
are filled with green fruit, of the size of a Valencia 
orange, but with a smooth rind, and endowed on 
the top with a little appendix, as if the stem passed 
through and came out on the other side. 

The rain has ceased and the hills, whose first 
slopes we begin to ascend, resume their bluish 
tints. A half mile farther, and in, the beautiful, 
moist, warm country of Reggio, facing one of the 
broadest landscapes in the world, we stop at the 
gate of a villa. Very different is this from even a 
Marseillaise bastide! A hedge of red geraniums, 
luxuriant, growing up into great shrubs, sur- 
rounds the house, which is tinted pink and covered 
halfway up the walls with climbing jasmine. Be- 
tween the walls and the geranium hedge, like a 



222 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

greenhouse, like a portico, an arbour covered with 
vines makes a shade from the noonday sun; it 
bends around the eastern facade of the house and 
brings the visitor to the entrance. 

The interior entirely fails to correspond with 
the grace outside. I have often been surprised at 
the indifference to comfort manifested by the mid- 
dle-class Italians. The proprietor of this villa is 
a rich man, but there is scarcely any furniture in his 
house; the beds — oh, Normandy, land of eider- 
downs! — are composed of a very small mattress 
and a minute straw-bed between iron uprights; 
and the frames which hang against the cracked 
plaster of the walls have in them nothing but 
chromo-lithographs, suggestive of a village tavern. 
Let us go to the orchard! 

It is an enchanting spot. Emerging from under 
the vine arbour, we enter a grove of oranges, man- 
darins, and bergamots, very high, very luxuriant, 
meeting above our heads, and having beneath their 
arches a shadow that is scarcely flecked, here and 
there, with a ray of sunlight. A little further on 
there is a great square inclosure entirely filled with 
bergamots; and along one avenue there are shrubs 
with oval leaves, and fruit like a soft, green 
pine-cone. 

" I was thinking you might not know that," 
Signor Guglielmo said. 

" What do you call it?" 

" It is the annona, also a specialty of Reggio, 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 223 

and impossible to export. The pulp is top tender, 
but so nice! Try it! " 

He took from his coat pocket a little spoon, 
plunged it into one of the largest, and drew out a 
long morsel of creamy pulp, yellow white, at the 
end of which was a black seed, extremely hard. 
My companion found the annona insipid; to me it 
had a delicious flavour of vanilla. But I was a lit- 
tle intoxicated by the odour of all these geraniums 
and perfumer's plants. I no longer dare persevere 
in my opinion of the annona. 

We came back in the direction of the essence 
factory, a very modest structure, a few steps from 
the house and on the edge of a second grove of 
plum trees. The work was all carried on in the 
same hall, in the different corners. At the right, 
near the door, kneeling in the centre of a wooden 
frame that lay on the ground filled with berga- 
mots, Ciccia, the little Sicilian girl, was sorting the 
fruits. Her yellow kerchief and Arab head rose 
prettily above the green pyramids. She selected 
five bergamots of equal size and passed them to 
her father, who placed them in the receiver of a 
machine. A few turns of a crank and the work 
was done. The five came out apparently intact, 
but invisible cuts had expressed the essence from 
the rind. The fruit itself had no more value as 
perfume. It was thrown to another man who, 
with a machine, quartered it, and these pieces, in a 
press at the opposite end of the hall, gave an 



224 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

abundant liquid, loaded with citric acid. Then, 
that nothing might be wasted, the residue, in a 
heap, was carried away to be fed to the cows, 
sheep, and goats. 

I inquire what is the profit from a bergamot 
grove. Signor Guglielmo tells me that the cul- 
ture of this precious tree is quite expensive, each 
one requiring, like an orange tree, to be watered 
at least once a week; but, on the whole, that a 
quarter acre well planted with trees of good size 
will give about 8 kilos of essence, at 25 lire the 
kilo. His domain gives not less than 800 or 1000 
kilos in good years [25 lire the kilo equals, 
approximately, $2.25 the pound]. 

" But," he says, and I detect in the tone of his 
voice his sincere pity for us, " you do not know 
true bergamot in Paris. Even here many dealers 
adulterate it by adding other essences, such as the 
essence of terebinth." 

I, myself, was more touched by the condition 
of the labourers whom Signor Guglielmo and 
other Calabrians employ in their factories. These 
men, whom I have just seen, go to bed at five in 
the afternoon, immediately after their supper. At 
ten o'clock they rise, and they work all night — 
" because they will be less distracted from their 
work in the night," says my host — then, all the 
morning, and in the afternoon up to three o'clock. 
For this prodigious day they get 1.25 [25 cents]. 
As for their food — and they have neither meat nor 



SOUTHERN ITALY. 225 

wine — their breakfast menu may give an idea of 
it: two pepperpods dipped in oil and a piece of 
black bread! 

" Now you understand/' philosophically remarks 
the proprietor of the bergamot grove, " why 
emigration is so common in this part of the 
country." 

In company with him we visit the upper part 
of the domain. Soon, at the limit of the irrigat- 
ing channels, the grove of plum trees ends. The 
ground, stony, glowing with heat, burnt by the 
sun, can only produce vines — which are at this time 
suffering from the phylloxera — and stunted fig 
trees spreading out their leaves near the ground. 
As we go higher, vegetation becomes more 
impoverished. A dried-up torrent, like a dusty 
road, seems to mark the limit of the terrestrial 
paradise of Reggio. Beyond, there are only un- 
even the slopes covered with cactus, and then the 
great mountain peaks of Calabria. 



IV. 

A CORNER OF SICILY .ETNA IN ERUPTION. 

I was desirous to set foot again upon this land of 
Sicily, whence, two years earlier, I had brought 
away memories so precious; and, especially, I was 
eager to revisit JEtna, whose eruption still con- 
tinued. It had begun in July. It was thought to 
be ending, and many a time had I pictured to 
myself the spectacle of glowing lavas on the 
huge slopes, in the region where the rocks 
were strewn with ferns or in that, lower down, 
of the chestnut woods. From Reggio by night 
I had sought to discover a spark upon the 
mountain's side; but from the mainland nothing 
could be seen. I crossed over to Messina and took 
the train for Aci-Reale. 

It is very pleasant to return to roads like these, 
whose beauty seems to be changeless, scarcely de- 
pendent upon the seasons. I had been here before 
in summer, and it was now the middle of winter. 
But there was very little change. We passed 
freight trains loaded with lemons in boxes, or even 
the fruit heaped up, open to the air, like the apples 
of Normandy. The mountains on the right had 

226 



A CORNER OF SICILY— ^ETN A IN ERUPTION. 227 

no more lost the verdure of their olive trees and 
cactuses than the wonderful outline of their fret- 
work crests, with here and there an old Saracenic 
fort. Their fiitmare had scarcely more water than 
in the month of August. On the left I recognized 
the precipitous slopes, planted with vineyards and 
groves of plum trees, the villas of the citizens of 
Messina who are lovers of orchards, the capes 
with their deep-blue shadows on the sea, and the 
fishing-boats drawn up on the water's edge. I 
even felt the same surprise as before on passing 
from the Italian country into this half African 
island, on seeing the bronzed faces of the lower 
classes, the thick lip and the piercing glance. I 
heard again the same kind of talk as before: 
" Nothing new, then, from Castrogiovanni, since 
the leader of the Marini was killed? " 

" No." 

" That was a long time ago. And how is it with 
you?" 

" Not the slightest accident; complete security. 
Is it because Rinaldi's men have been captured? " 

" No, it is a pity; e gran peccato." I had espe- 
cially extolled to my companion the charms of this 
little city of Aci-Reale, all white, at the foot of 
^Etna, with its belt of orange trees. But clouds 
had gathered, and the rain began to fall. When I 
wished to demonstrate, on the spot, the reasons 
for my ardour, I found not one left. The streets 
were filthy, narrow, tangled up; yEtna was hid- 



228 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

den; the orange trees, all black, wept over our 
heads; the dealers in fruit and vegetables, those 
jewellers of Italy, had taken in their brilliant stock 
in trade, even to the wreaths of tomatoes; the 
leaden sea beat upon a gray shore. And I became 
conscious that there were times when even Sicily 
did not do itself justice. 

The rain continued; darkness coming on was 
making still more gloomy the road and the white 
sea and the gardens of the baths of Santa Venera, 
which were visible from the hotel where we had 
taken shelter, when we heard a dull, prolonged 
sound which made the windows rattle. " A ship 
is leaving the port of Catana," a servant said. 
" She has a big gun, and the wind brings the sound 
to Aci." But half an hour later my friend, who 
had stepped out upon the balcony, called to me: 
" ^Etna is flaming! This is magnificent! " And, 
indeed, the storm, dividing and passing off, left 
^Etna visible. The moon cast a faint light on the 
snow-covered summit and the formidable declivi- 
ties of the mountain. At two-thirds of its height, 
and seeming still higher in this vista of the sky, 
a fiery trail was winding down, and three craters, 
perfectly distinct, emitted flames. The sky was 
reddened above them. The highest, or at least 
that which seemed so from our point of view, 
threw up sheaves of incandescent stones, like a 
comet's tail, and we could see them fall back, not 
upon lower ground, but higher up the mountain. 



A CORNER OF SICILY— JBTNA IN ERUPTION 229 

The report of a gun which we had heard was this 
crater, formed very early in the eruption, resuming 
its activity. 

I whispered my thanks to the mountain, and 
went indoors to arrange for an ascent on the mor- 
row, with a return during the night. The land- 
lord was smoking under the broad, open vestibule. 
Groups — for the sake of international politeness, 
let us say — of ragged dreamers hung around the 
gate. 

" Void, Don Abbondio. I have come to apply 
to you; I want to start to-morrow at one o'clock/' 

And at this point five or six from these groups 
drew near. There is so little news at Aci-Reale! 
It is so pleasant to catch three words from a 
stranger, or from a neighbour, and supply the rest, 
in those little conventicles men hold in the square, 
during the hours when they live a la grecque, in the 
open air. I endeavoured to escape them. They 
followed us, with much politeness, however. 
And I saw that the innkeeper had some pre- 
cautions to employ. It was publicly agreed 
that we should leave the hotel at a given hour, and 
by a given route; also that we should leave on the 
return at about such an hour. " Nevertheless," 
said the innkeeper to me in a low voice, " do not 
come back by night to sleep here." 

" Why not? " I said. " The roads are safe? " 

" Oh, perfectly safe! But you would do better 
to sleep at Nicolosi." And he got out of it with- 



23° THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

out explanation, using that Southern phrase, 
which says nothing, and expresses everything: 
" Can one ever know when things are right? " 

If I had not been familiar with Sicily, this might 
have caused me alarm. I am convinced that a 
stranger can go down any hour of the night 
from the crater of iEtna to the shore, and incur 
no danger. But the Sicilians have such an inveter- 
ate habit of being jealous of each other, and they 
show this so frequently in their conduct, that they 
are in great part responsible for the unfortunate 
and unmerited reputation of their island. 

The following day, about one o'clock in the 
afternoon, we set off from Nicolosi, where we had 
been resting for several hours; the shrewd old inn- 
keeper of the dismal little village, Mazzaglia, cor- 
rispondente del clubo alpino italiano, sezione Catania, 
having procured the two mules that we needed. 
I had asked for my former guide, Carbonaro, but 
he was sowing his barley, visitors being rare at 
this late time of year, and one of his comrades came 
instead. 

The day was extremely clear. On the many ex- 
tinct craters, sons of iEtna, which covered the 
mountain's sides, the yellow broom, all in flower, 
shone in the sunlight. On each side of the stony 
road the last red leaves were hanging on the cherry 
trees, and the last yellowed leaves on the vines. 
Troops of women and children, coming down from 
the belt of forests, loaded with bags of chestnuts, 



A CORNER OF SICILY— ^ETNA IN ERUPTION. 231 

met us and passed by with the bitona sera! so pleas- 
ant to hear. 

Above the cone, up there in the sky, over 
the prodigious chimney whose aperture was ten 
thousand feet in circumference, the great cloud of 
white smoke, rolled up at the edges, rose heavily, 
as usual, and soon fell again, its point toward Cala- 
bria. A faint quiver in the atmosphere, and a gray 
vapour, very slight and vanishing very rapidly, 
revealed that the volcano was still in eruption, and 
that lava was flowing at the foot of the Monta- 
gnola, in the arid region, where the snows cease. 

Soon after leaving behind us the last houses of 
Nicolosi, we had come to a first stream of cooled 
lava. It had partly spread itself over older lavas, 
and formed with them a kind of gigantic embank- 
ment, throwing out secondary branches all along 
its course. The vineyards which this current had 
crossed seemed dead. However, the Italian treas- 
ury has already been at work here. Amid the gen- 
eral misfortunes, the Government endeavoured not 
to lose more than was inevitable, and a few -months 
after the beginning of the eruption a list was 
prepared of the lands which had escaped. Its 
white marks punctuated the torrent now forever 
fixed and hard; nothing had been forgotten, not 
even a half-acre lot enveloped on every side by the 
fire. 

"A shame !" my guide said. "Owners who 
had the best land on the mountain! Here they are, 



232 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

ruined; and the Government hastened to lay its 
tax on bits of ground wherever there were left so 
much as a couple of dozen half-burnt vines and one 
scorched olive tree! " 

The man was intelligent. He had been an eye- 
witness of the drama of the eruption, and related it 
to me as we climbed the mountain. 

" It was lucky," he said, " that the lavas followed 
the route which earlier ones had made, for no 
person living has ever seen so much lava thrown 
out as in this eruption. It destroyed the Stags' 
Wood and its beautiful farm. Chestnuts and vines 
and olive trees that you could not help coveting, 
signor, when you saw them. The lava was deep 
enough to bury ten times as much. We were ex- 
pecting the eruption, I and my comrades. As 
long ago as June there were days without smoke, 
which is a bad sign; and others with a great deal 
and with ashes. Then, early in July, Contarini, one 
of the guides, came back from the Casa inglese with 
travellers whose clothes had been completely dis- 
coloured by the vapours that came out of the 
ground. It was on the 9th that the mountain 
burst open, between the Montagnola and Monte 
Nero, with a sound like a discharge of hundreds 
of cannon, and earthquakes and jets of smoke. By 
evening the new craters could be seen from Ca- 
tania, and the lava coming down in two streams 
like a horse-shoe, and very rapidly. I went close 
up to see it many times, with travellers, who found 



A CORNER OF SICILY— &TNA IN ERUPTION. 233 

it very curious; though it was a sad sight, I assure 
you. 

" Once, in particular, one of the first nights 
after the eruption, we came to a stream of lava 
several hundred yards broad, and higher than the 
chestnut trees in the region through which it was 
flowing. It moved very slowly, except some red- 
hot blocks on top, which now and then broke away 
from it, and rushed through the woods. But the 
trees were a pitiable sight. From a distance they 
began to quiver; their leaves shook violently, dried 
up in a few minutes, and then blazed up all at once. 
Frequently the trunk did not burn, but fell into the 
torrent. Nights after that I used often to look up 
from Catania to the point on the mountain where 
I had been. Often I could see on the red belt of 
the torrent thousands of little white flames blazing 
up for a few minutes and then dying out. The 
beautiful chestnut trees, signor, that you will never 
see here again! " x 

We kept on, however, under the branches, and 
I remembered the thin, scattered brushwood and 
crests of woodland, whose moss had certainly never 
felt the touch of fire. Not until about five o'clock, 
at a mile and a quarter beyond the Casa del Bosco, 

1 Many details of my guide's story were also given in the narrative 
addressed to me by the learned and obliging professor of the univer- 
sity of Catania, Signor Bartoli, who passes a part of his summer at 
the Casa ingles e. See SulV cruzione delV Etna, etc., Torino/ tip, 
San Giuseppe. 



234 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

did we reach the new frontier that the eruption had 
just made to the forests of yEtna. In front and 
above us the open space, filled with ferns and cir- 
cular tufts of astragal; higher up still, the snow, 
held in place by the wall of the Montagnola; and, 
lastly, dominating its innumerable sons, the great 
broad crater softly outlined against the bright 
sky. But at the right, not far distant, where 
two< years before I had admired the russet 
tints of the undergrowth and of the trees, a wall 
of lava rears itself. The mules make their way in 
between the heaped-up blocks, and reach the 
summit of the first wave of stone. Thence is 
visible the saddest and most arid landscape the 
mind can imagine — a succession of monstrous fur- 
rows of dead lava,, black as peat lands, bristling 
with clods that seem unstable in their balance, 
with twisted spires, with projecting roofs forming 
caves beneath them. We discover no other thing, 
so far as the eye can see in that direction. The 
stream buried the woods and the pasture lands, 
and completely mastered the slope up to the point 
where it dips rapidly and disappears. We advance 
very slowly, crevasses sending up hot puffs into 
our faces. In the little valleys the heat is smother- 
ing, and only the cold outer air, scourging our 
faces when we come out on the crest of the slope, 
recalls to us that we are nearly seven thousand feet 
above the level of the sea, on a winter's afternoon. 
The sun is already very low as we begin the 



A CORNER OF SICILY— &TNA IN ERUPTION. 235 

ascent of Monte Nero, a former cone of eruption, 
which the lava of 1892 completely covered. The 
ascent is very steep, and thickly overgrown with 
weeds. We fasten our mules rather insecurely be- 
hind the shelter of a rock, and look about us. 
The active craters of the present eruption are very 
near. On the side of ^Etna, which rises on the left, 
three of these, all within two hundred yards of us, 
smoke and hiss, and send up sand and small stones. 
Their edges are spotted with sulphur. 

At their base jets of vapour issue from the 
ground. The activity of the volcano is much 
diminished, and the spectacle is not fright- 
ful, at least by day. That which is really 
alarming is to look off over the second desert 
of lava, like that which we have just crossed, 
whose limits are lost in the mists of twilight 
in the remote distance, and to remember that 
part of this lava is still hot and fluid. What 
part of it? That we cannot tell. The whole is uni- 
formly of the same blackish colour with that of the 
cold lava back of us. Rapidly we descend, pre- 
ceded by the guide, to traverse on foot these enor- 
mous plains under which the stone is perhaps soft 
with heat. Often we make a circuit after testing 
with the hand the surface of some heap. 

Around, the light decreases. We are in the 
midst of chaos, climbing ridges and descending, 
without any marked track. Suddenly I perceive, 
thirty paces in front of us, a rivulet of fire. It 



236 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

seems to me as broad as a little stream which 
would be spanned by the single arch of a bridge; 
it emerges from a semicircular aperture in the 
midst of the great extinct river. The lava, pushed 
up from its depths to this point, is like a high wave, 
a ridge of incandescent earth, which curls slowly 
over, and pushes on the preceding ridge. As we 
look, it grows more red. I follow it with the eye 
down the mountain side, until it is lost to view. 

The sky is still pale. When I glance earthward 
again, after having my eyes lifted to the first stars, 
veiled in mist, trembling above the invisible lands 
of Sicily, it is now not merely a single rivulet of 
fire that I see before me, but at distances that the 
eye cannot measure in the darkness, thousands of 
points or broken lines, covering with a network of 
fire the entire slope of ^Etna. The eruption, which 
must at first have been frightful, has reached the 
period of being odd and picturesque. It is an 
illumination, noiseless and unreflected, of avenues 
and squares, unbuilt, unpeopled; or it is like crim- 
son lanterns hung through a forest. Very near me 
a sort of luminous fountain glows. The lava must 
ascend inside a rock set up on end, which seems 
to be very high. The fiery stream appears at the 
top of this rock, and drips in a cascade down each 
side, We are lost in this strange world, silent and 
unmindful of the passage of time. 

Darkness had completely invaded the plateau. 
It was impossible for us to find the road by which 



A CORNER OF SICILY— JETNA IN ERUPTION. 237 

we had made the ascent, and we returned at ran- 
dom, picking our way among little craters, now 
each coiffed with its dome of vapour, reddened be- 
neath by flash of sudden flames. Our mules had 
awaited us, without breaking the poor slip of juni- 
per to which their bridles hung. They clambered 
up the steep slope of Monte Nero, traversing the 
second current of lava, and soon plunged their feet 
into the mossy ground under the chestnuts. 

Then, the sky having become perfectly clear, the 
crescent moon shone out. Its white light fell on 
points of rock and on trunks of trees and denuded 
branches. The illusion was still unbroken, and I 
think the guide understood it. We rode down- 
ward in the wondrous silence of iEtna, in the fresh- 
ness of a night that might have been of summer. 
He pointed from time to time, with a silent ges- 
ture, to the right or left to show us, through some 
clearing, the mountain side all dripping with fire. 
There remained the same singular deception, the 
same effect of some stately illumination. Only the 
rivulets of lava seemed to grow narrower, and to 
be no more than necklaces of fire, and the flaming 
points grouped themselves into constellations. 
Finally, when we reached Nicolosi, we could still 
see, between the roofs, the mountain all 011 fire 
above the tranquil, sleeping houses of the town. 

A month later I was on my way back to France. 
I had taken the Cornice Road, and I was between 



238 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

Geneva and Vintimiglia, close to the French fron- 
tier. Having failed to make connection, as the 
result of a slight accident during the night, we had 
been obliged to take an accommodation train, 
which stopped at each one of the little stations 
along the Riviera; and, fatigued with the journey, 
which was made interminable by slowness of the 
train, eager to be again in France, I gave but care- 
less attention to the bays everywhere so beautiful, 
and to the mountains, so fine after we leave San 
Remo. Travellers of every sort had entered the 
compartment and had left it, and not a word been 
said by anyone, when, at one of the stations, an old 
gentleman, with long, bushy hair and a long frock- 
coat flapping about his legs, came in and seated 
himself opposite me. 

As soon as we were again in motion, my sociable 
neighbour inquired as to my nationality. 

" English? " he said. 

" No." 

"Russian?" 

"No; I am French." 

" Ah! " he said, lifting both hands; " the French 
used once to be so popular here in Piedmont, in 
the time when I was a young man! I am a 
doctor." 

"Ah! "I said. 

" I was present at the entrance of your troops 
into Milan, your soldiers and ours together. You 
have no idea of the enthusiasm. Your soldiers 



A CORNER OF SICILY— MTN A IN ERUPTION. 239 

changed caps with the Italians. Ladies, great 
ladies whom I could name, kissed your men. 
There was a rain of flowers from the windows, and 
there were banners, and triumphal arches, and 
shouts, i Vive la France I Vive Vltaliel ' It was so 
fine! I myself had the care of some of the 
wounded French." 

I asked him at random: " Did you know Gen- 
eral F.?" 

" Captain F.?" he said; 

" Yes; but he has become a general." 

" Indeed I did! I carried him in my arms. I 
was first assistant, and had the charge of a convoy 
of the wounded for Brescia, I took the captain 
out of the train and laid him on the stretcher when 
we reached the town. He said: ' How good that 
is! You carry me like a baby. I no longer suffer! ' 
We expected to go to the hospital, but they would 
not let us do it. All the rich people of the town 
were eager to take care of the French soldiers! 
Shall you see him? " 
; "Oh, yes!" 

" I don't think he will have forgotten me. Tell 
him that you met an old man, Dr. S., who now 
lives quite unknown at Pieve di Secco, but who re- 
members Solferino and Magenta and Palestro. 
Alas! those days when the French and we under- 
stood each other, and were friends, have gone, 
never to return! " 

I answered him: " Chi lo sa? " — " Who knows? " 



240 THE ITALIANS OF TO-DAY. 

He looked at me astonished, and he was obliged 
to wink rapidly on account of the tears; just then 
the train stopped again, and as he rose to go he 
grasped both my hands: 

" Perhaps you are right ! Chi lo sa? " 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



INDEX. 



Aci-Reale, 227, 229 
iEtna, eruption of, 225-37 
Agriculture, Italian : in Lombardy, 
1 ; on the Campagna, 1 19-21, 
126-81 ; in Southern Italy, 211, 
212, 220-25 
Agro romano, see Campagna 
All Saints Day, in Milan, 8-13 
Anzuini, noted brigand, 154, 155 
Aqueduct water, its introduction 
on the Campagna, 134 ; in 
Southern Italy, 208, 209 
Arnulfo, dialect poet, 54 

B 

Baccelli, Guido, 122, note 
Barracks in Bologna, visit to, 66- 

7i 
Bartoli, Professor, 233, note 
Belli, Roman satirist, 54 
Bergamot, the, its culture in Reg- 

gio, 220-25 
Bertone, Piedmontese owner of 

domains on the Campagna, 133 
Bologna : barracks, 66-71 ; old 

quarters of, 74 ; church of S. 

Francis, 75-77 
Bonghi, Ruggiero, kis address at 

Lucera, 25, 26 



Bonificamento idratilico of the 

Campagna, 130, 131, 133, 137, 

170, 174 
Borghese, Prince, financial disaster 

of, 102, 103 ; owner of domains 

on the Campagna, 133, 163 
Brigandage, on the Campagna, 

154, 155 ; in Sicily, 155, 227, 

229, 230 ; Calabrian, 218 
Buffalo Bill, his opinion of Roman 

butteri, 117 
Buffaloes, domestic animals of the 

Campagna, 118, 119, 171 ; their 

long names, 171-74 
Butteri of the Campagna, 117, 

121, 169 



Calabria, railway journey into, 
207-18 ; railway of, 208 

Campagna di Roma, the {Agro 
romano), as seen from the city, 
109 ; wine-carts of, 111-13 ; ex- 
tent and boundaries of, 116 ; 
statistics concerning, 116, 118, 

119, note ; butteri and vergari 
of, 144-47, 140-55, 117, 121, 
buffaloes of, 118, 119, 171-74 ; 
cultivation of, 119 ; laborers of, 

120, 156-65 ; malaria of, 94, 
121-26, 138, 166-68, 180 ; de- 



243 



244 



INDEX. 



population of, 1 12-14 » sanitary 
improvement of, 125-27 ; lati- 
f undia of, 126, 127 ; papal 
efforts at improvement of, 126- 
29; ancient popular rights upon, 
burdensome to owners, 128, 129 ; 
recent efforts at improvement of, 
130-32, present condition of, 
*33, 134 J four excursions into, 
140-81 
Campo salino, 166, 174 
Campo santo, of Milan, 9-13 
Canevari, Roman engineer, 125 
Caporali, Italian contractors for 

laborers, 3, 156, 164, 177 
Capuana, Luigi, Sicilian author, 

155 and note 
Carducci, 37, 87 
Colli Berici, 42-46 
Colombo, Giuseppe, on Italian 

finances, 28-32 
Comandini, Dr. Antonio Alfredo, 

his political address, 26 
Costumes, peasant, 12, 13, 210 
Crudeli, Tommaso, 125, note ; 126, 

note 
Currency, depreciation of the, 6, 7 



d'Annunzio, Gabriele, 53 
d'Auria, Antonio, Neapolitan 

councillor, 186-95 
De Amicis, 24, 53 



Emigration, Italian, 2, 212-15, 
225 



Eucalyptus-trees, preventive of 
malaria, 168, 169 



Financial question, the, 28-35 
Flaminian Way, the old, 140, 141 
Florence : attractive aspect, 78, 79; 
performance at the opera, 79-84 
Fogazzaro, Italian author, 37, 38, 

45, 46, 53 
Folchi, Monsignor, former ad- 
ministrator of papal finances, 

103-5 
Fontana, Ferdinando, dialect poet, 

54 
Forests, destruction of, in Southern 

Italy, 211 ; in Sicily, by lava 

streams, 233, 234 
France, Italian feeling toward, 

26-28, 42, 66, 219, 238-40 
Fucini, Renato, Italian author, 

37, 38, 53, 54, 186 
Fucino, Lago, 137 



Giacomo, Salvatore di, 53, 206 

and note, 207 
Giacosa, Giuseppe, 53 
Giolitti on the financial question, 

32, 33 
Grabinski, Count, $,note 

H 

Haussmann, Baron, in Rome, 98, 

99 
Horses, Roman, 169 ; a prime 

luxury in Naples, 182 



INDEX, 



245 



Hospitality, Tuscan, 
Roman, 91-93 



36-46; 



Iacini, Count, on taxation, 4 
Industry, in Northern Italy, 2, 3, 7 
Irrigation, in Lombardy, 1 



Jettatura, in Naples, 201-6 



Laborers, agricultural, their con- 
dition : in Lombardy, 2-5 ; on 
the Campagna, 120, 156-64, 
177 ; in Southern Italy, 224, 225 

Lancelotti, princes, owners of 
Tor Sapienza, 133 

Laurel-leaves, an article of export, 
150 

Laws designed to improve the 
condition of the Campagna : 
papal, 126-130 ; commission ap- 
pointed in 1870 to prepare, 
130 ; two now in force, those of 
1878, and 1883, 130-32 ; ill- 
received, 132, 133 ; unsatis- 
factory results from, 133, 134 ; 
criticisms of, 135-40 

Leo XIII., his loans to the 
Romans, 103-5 ; his losses, 104 

Literature, Italian : character of 
Italian style, 23, 24, 39 ; ar- 
rested development, 52 ; local 
and dialect works, 53-56 ; the 
sonnet popular, 55 ; great num- 



ber of poets, 56, 57 ; sincere and 
pathetic South Italian school, 
205-7 
Lombardy, its extraordinary fer- 
tility, 1 ; industry of its popula- 
tion, 1-3 ; their poverty, 2-7 ; 
taxation, 4-7 

M 

Maccarese, large domain on the 
Campagna, visit to, 166-81 

Malaria, in Rome, much exagger- 
ated, 96 ; on the Campagna, 
121-26 

Manufactures, Italian, question of, 
50-52 

Margherita, Queen, 16-19 

Mascagni, his career, 79, 81-84 

M erode, Count, owner of Tor 
Marancio, 133 

Merode, Monsignor, prime mover 
in the transformation of Rome, 

98 

Milan : scenes in the Cathedral, 8, 
9 ; in the cemetery, 9-13 ; in- 
auguration of Institute for the 
Blind, 13-18 ; architecture of 
via Dante, 20-22 ; electoral 
campaign in, 22-24 

Mitella, Italian author, 129, note 

N 

Naples : simplicity of manners, 
182-85, *9° \ the rcsanimento, 
185, 186, 189, 190, 191, 192, 
194; the Porto, 186, 195; 
poverty, 187-93 ; cholera, 193, 



246 



INDEX. 



194 ; a new quarter 195-97 ; 

Vicaria, 198-201 \jettatura y 201- 

6 ; literature, 205-7 
Negri, Ada, Italian poet, 57, 58 
Nitto, Italian author, 121, note 



Padua : cathedral, 60, 61 ; uni- 
versity, 61-63 

Paper money, 6 

Patriotism, local, 36-38, 72-74 

" Personals" in Italian papers, 59, 
60 

Peruzzi, Ubaldino, 130 

Piacentini, owners of domains on 
the Campagna, 133 

Piano regalatore, in Rome, 100 

Piedigrotta, festa of, 205 

Politics, Italian, 23-35 

Pratesi, Mario, 53 

R 

Railway-carriages, conversations 
in, 49-52, 86-88, 211-16 

Rantzau, performance in Florence, 
70-84 

Reggio, visit to, 219-25 

Rome : its peculiar charm, 90-91 ; 
hospitality of its princes, 91-93 ; 
characteristics of its people, 94- 
96 ; its new quarters, 97-99, 105- 
8 ; financial disaster of, 99-105 ; 
its suburbs, 1 09-11 ; fortifica- 
tions, 1 13-15 ; general health- 
fulness of, 121 

Rospigliosi, Princes, owners of 
Maccarese, 133, 167, 168, 169, 
171, 172, 176, 180 



Rosso, Alessandro, founder of 
Industrial School in Vicenza, 
46, 47. 



San Spirito, Hospital of, ill, 169 
Sansovino, frescoes of, in Padua, 

61 
Santa Maria, on the Campagna, 

visit to, 148-55 
School, Industrial, in Vicenza, 

46-49 
Sculpture, Modern Italian, 10-14 
Senate, the Italian, 40 
Serao, Mathilda, 53, 205, 206 
Siena gentile : its beauty as seen 

by night, 84-86 ; its university, 

86-88 ; its festa, 88, 89 
Sicily, visited, 225-38 
Socialism, in Italy, 5 
Soffietto, the, 111-13 
Sonzogno, Edoardo, Mascagni's 

patron, 83 



Taxation, excessive, 4, 6, 29, 30, 

177, 231, 232 
Ten-kilometre law, the, 156 
Tiber-quays, cost of, 99 
Tiburzio, noted brigand, 155 
Tor di Quinto, 133, 141 
Torlonia, Prince, owner of domains 

in the Campagna, 133 
Tre Fontane, the Abbey, 133, 

168 
Triple Alliance, question of the, 

28, 31, 42 



INDEX. 



247 



Types, Italian, 8, 9, 12, 13, 37, 
49, 50, 67, 80, 81, 86, 93, 94, 
117, 153, 154, 187, 191, 197, 
199, 200, 209, 221, 223, 238 

U 

Umberto, King, 14-18 

Unification, Italian, 71-4 

Universities, Italian, of Padua, 
61-63 ; smaller ones to be given 
up, 63, 64 ; of Siena, 86-88 

Usury, prevalence of, 44 



Valchetta, domain in the Cam- 

pagna, visit to, 142-47 
Valentini, 119, note 
Verga, Italian author, 53, 206, 207 



Veronese, Paolo, his supper of S. 
Gregory, in Vicenza, 43, 44 

Vicenza, seen in the evening, 35, 
36 ; environs of, 42-46 ; Indus- 
trial School in, 46-49 

Villa de' Nani, 44 

Visconti, Castle of the, in Milan, 
20 

Vitali, Abbe, composer, 18 

W 

Wine-carts of the Campagna, 111- 
13 



Zampani, Italian engineer, 209 
Zanella, Giacomo, priest and 
poet, 57 



THE END. 




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